A front-foot bruiser, Adams veered from the ferocious to the fallible. He was one of the most explosive batsmen in the county game and loves to hit the ball in the air. But in his only spell in Test cricket - in South Africa in 1999-00 - his aggressive instincts got him into trouble, especially when he drove loosely and without moving his feet. Adams is a combative cricketer and team-mates had to step in when he and Wasim Akram squared up during the interval at the 1993 B&H final. He spent ten increasingly unhappy years at Derbyshire, cricket's nest of vipers, and joined Sussex as a highly-paid captain in 1998, where he and Michael Bevan spent two summers rescuing the middle order. His hard work paid dividends in 2003 when he led Sussex to their first title and in April 2004 he was named one of Wisden's Five Cricketers of the Year. In 2006 he led Sussex to double success, winning the C&G Trophy and the Championship. At the end of the season a few eyebrows were raised when he announced he was moving to Yorkshire ... less than a fortnight later even more were raised when he made a U-turn and decided to stay at Hove and he won back-to-back Championships in 2006 and 2007. After Sussex clinched the Pro40 title in 2008, Adams announced he was standing down as captain after 11 years. He then hot-footed it to Surrey as their professional cricket manager, renewing his alliance with Gus Mackay whom he worked with at Sussex.
Lawrence Booth December 2008