ffs, he hasn't played a test match for 18 months, and only pietersen scored more than him. how about some praise that extends beyond "did well".

sidebottom proved me wrong. i didn't think he had it in him, but he bowled superbly all afternoon and looked really dangerous throughout. hopefully he will be able to do so again, the danger is that it could be neil mallender re-visited.

Ryan proved many wrong, including most Yorkshirmen. I can understand your Mallendar worry, but remember that Headingley is a diferent pitch from the past. In the 80's & 90's all a bowler had to do was bowl roughly staight to take wickets, in the last few years there's been a requirement to do a bit more. I agree that Sidebottom is only a fill in though. But when Hoggard & Flintoff come back I think I'drather have Sidebottom than Plunket & the current version of Harmison

England beat West Indies by a cricket score.

I was most confused earlier.
I was following the Nott's V Derby's game (reduced to 13 overs each because of rain.)
Nott's batted first and scored 170.

Both the Nott's and the BBC online scorecard then showed (for the first 8 overs) that Nott's had come out to bat again

After 8 overs it was suddenly amended to show the Derby's team batting and Nott's bowling with the score remaining the same





Nott's won by 50 runs

The BBC are getting worse Aqua. Half the time they don't know their **** from their elbow.

p.s. Looks like you won't be seeing Mr Sidebottom at Trent Bridge for a while. An England pace bowler who bowls straight ..... whatever next.

despite having no fit players, the shire still beat essex yesterday. actually doing quite well in the 1 day stuff.

the test was more than pleasing too. the windies heaviest ever defeat. after the maulings we took from them over 20 odd years it's great to be on the other foot.

here's an impressive pint pot snake from leeds.

Didn't get to see a single ball at the Oval on Sunday...

.... I can feel for you Sarah, there's nothing worse than going to a game & not seeing any cricket.

I just hope you didn't pay to get in or got your money back. My opinion of Notts went up by a million% when they refunded our entry fee after a one day county game was abandoned at Trent Bridge. The weather had been fine up to about 5 minutes before the game was due to start when it started drizzling & never stopped.

We ordered the tickets weeks ago and apparently, for that trophy, if less than 24.5 overs are played, they automatically refund you, so no harm done.
It was funny eating our picnic in the rain, staring out to a pitch with the covers on.
There were barely 40 other people there, really sad really.

Sarwan ruled out

Yesterday someone suggested that if this was to happen (and I feel for Sarwan - he seems like a nice bloke) they may try to persuade Lara to play.

.........allegedly Lara was approached and said no.

Shame because Ms. Croft would look good in cricket whites.

Is she the one married to former Windies bowler Colin, or the Welsh spinner Robert ?

tennis wasn't she?

That was Miss Croft rather than Mrs Croft. Annabel could bowl me over anytime & in her short skirts often provided a fine leg glance.

That's not original, Red. But this is.

Click to view attachment

Ok let's get back to cricket now.

Op' for Flintoff

Might not be that much of a problem for the team. It may also allow him to rest and get his head together.

Don't know if anyone else reads the BBC online commentary of the Tests but in the last one, after a while, Sidebottom was always referred to as 'Sideshow Bob'

cricinfo is infinitely better, imho.

Last night Yorkshire beat the might of Derbyshire in a day night game. Well actually it was more like Derbyshire 1.5s as about half the 1st team in injured. But we had something that could only happen in English cricket ..... GOOD light stopped played. The Derby pitches run from west to east & the setting sun got so low that there had to be a 55 minute break as the batsmen couldn't see the ball. The laugh is that the Derby ground has permanent lights so they would really like to play more day/night games !!

PS Anyone who watched the game on Sky had a very lucky escape. I didn't bother travelling but the mate I'd have been sat with spent half the night on tele as he was shown every time the ball was bowled from the 'Sauna' End

I think this pyjama cricket's really good. They can walk off the field and go straight to bed.

Woolmer 'Not Murdered'

Utterly amazing! If someone wrote this, you'd never believe it.

I actually went to watch a game. Yorks played Durham in a 50 over 1 day game at Headingley. There a was a goodish crowd (est 5 to - 7 thousand), the weather was excelent, warm but not too hot. Durham played well (apart from 3 dropped catches), Yorkshire didn't (except for a ton from McGrath) , Durham won as usual when these 2 teams meet for a limited overs match.

Worc's beat Wark's by 8 wickets


Nott's beat Leic's

Can't believe the Bears blew that one yesterday but fair play to Worcs, it was a great knock.
Actually I think we've done rather well to stay undefeated til June, especially with what appears to be a fairly weak bowling attack.

I'm off for a (first) visit to New Road to watch Worc's V Surrey on Wednesday

i watched a large chunk of essex v surrey on sky yesterday. good game, essex did really well to pull a game that was running away from them around.

aqua, new road is a really great place to watch cricket, after cheltenham it's my favourite ground.

If Worc's play as well as they did against Wark's it should be a good day, weather looks promising too.

Moster are you trying to haunt me? First you ruin Golden Brown ... now you mention Cheltemham. Yes it's a lovely ground .... but it brings me out in a cold sweat. I've been 2 or 3 times with to watch Yorks play Glouc in 1 day games. Every time the weather has been beautiful, the ground full & Yorkshire have been absolutely murdered. The first visit as by car as we'd been at Edgbaston the day before so stayed over in Brum. We parked outside the nearby hospital chapel of rest .... it was suggested that the Yorks team should have been placed in the chapel after the game. Return trips have been by coach.

btw You are right about New Road, a lovely ground& Yorks often do well there. It's not fun though when the cathedral bells are being rung for 2 hours when you've a raging hangover !! My big regret for the 2007 season is that theWorcs/Yorks game is being held during the week ..... we've had some excelent weekends staying in the city as Worcs have often played the 4 day game from Fri to Mon ensuring a good turnout of Tykes.

Indeed New Road is a wonderful place to be when the sun is beating down.

how sweet is that. northants lost 3 wickets in the final over to lose to the Shire by just 4 runs after trying to chase down a mammoth 416. monty panesar loves me so much that he skied a drive to be last man out with just a ball to spare.

ah, monty, monty, monty.

Which is the knob here then?

http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/cricket/england/6723179.stm

If I remember rightly, it was only public criticism from the then lancashire captain neil fairbrother that made freddie get into shape as a youngster. in fact lancs weren't far off letting him go. he was by his own admission always on the piss, eating takeaways and not training hard enough.

As I've said before of the pedalo incident. Flintoff needs to remember that he's approaching 30 and he is going to find fitness harder to maintain, especially given his frame. He can make it easier for himself by reducing the binge drinking, or he can piss away his career as a top class cricketer, so that in years to come he will be remembered only for 2 magical years.

I don't think Vaughan was blaming the incident alone, but when half your team and some managers get a bollocking for going on the piss during a tournament, it's bound to have some effect on team morale.

Vaughan is basically right in what he is saying i'm sure but these things are better kept in house. Let's not let this get away from the fact that we were poo in Oz for the whole of the test series. If it is reverse psychology then I hope it works cos Freddie was awesome during the Ashes victory.

I think you are right Most, interestingly Fairbrother is now Freddy's agent/manager !

Lets hope that this row doesn't affect England's performance against the might West Indies at Old Trafford. I think Mr Vaughan may be in for some stick today

England win the toss and will BAT on a rock hard pitch.

Expect rain in manchester tomorrow as I am off work and plan to watch every ball bowled.

cricinfo report he has had a good reception, i think the lancashire crowd can see past a minor squabble.

Think the pressure may be on Strauss if he continually fails to score against what is a pretty poor and depleted West Indies bowling attack.
Hopefully my saying this will cause the inevitable response and red face with a second innings double ton, doubt it tho.

Good day at New Road yesterday with Worc's batting first and ending the day on 446 for 2.

I'm still having therapy after they managed to beat us (the Bears) last week, they panned us around like it was going out of fashion.

they've collapsed since, 565-4.

just had a look at the table. before this match they'd only gained 5 batting points in as many matches.

Meanwhile, back in the proper creekit, Cook has notched up yet another test 50.

Yup, Worc's are falling apart - 683 for 5 at the moment.

england are. 20-3 since lunch.

The wheels are coming off for England.

On a happier note Yorks 508-6. Sayers got 187 & McGrath got 100. The only problem was that the White Rose missed the 5th batting point by less than 5 runs (The third time out of 6 they've missed a point by under 10 runs)

at least you're scoring runs. glos are following on at derby (that's derby, ffs) and are already 34-2. thank christ glamorgan are shit, else we'd be looking at the wooden spoon.

Things must be bad if Glouc open their batting with Ian Fisher. Fisher is a slow left arm bowler who went to Glouc from his home county of Yorkshire. I don't remember Fisher doing much with the bat at Yorks