Yuvraj hit 6 6's in one over off Broad ... how come when he Singh was with Yorks a few years ago he was cr*p (& yes it was the same Yuvraj Singh)

Durhan have now beaten Kent which means that Lancs have to win their match to be champions ...... for the first time ever I have to say 'Come on Surrey' ... & no declarations please.

Nott's (scraping 3 points) are back in the first division.


Will need more effort to stay there

Good news as it's not that far to Trent Bridge for us Yorkies

Bad new because it always rains when we play a championship game at Trent Bridge

My sources indicate that Dougie Brown is likely to be instilled as Giles' number two/underling ahead of Alan Donald. Donald is keen due to his unwillingness to travel with England and his desire to prove himself as more than just a bowling coach. Looks like they've opted for Dougie anyway.
We are supposed to be chasing Otis Gibson as player/bowling coach although his tie up with England may affect that and we are currently behind Worcs in the bidding for a certain Simon Jones!!! Remember him?

Bad news for Moster. There's a rumour that Kirby is off on his travels. Moving back to Leicester is favourite. I hope it's not quite right as most Yorkies would love to have our bowling 'mad dog' back.

Alan Donald has quit his role as England's bowling coach. Looks like White Lightning is coming home after all.

Posting off my membership renewal and booking tickets for the NZ test and the SA one day

Paying for membership this early ... I hope you get a reduction or being agood Yorkshireman I'd advise you paid in spring. You do also realise that it will rain when Yorks turn up at Trent Bridge

S'ok - I've got a brolly

Yes but there's nowt worse than watching it rain rather than watching cricket ... believe me I've done it tooo many times

................................................................. Runs........ Balls ....... 4's.........6's

Pietersen c Sangakkara b Maharoof .......... 1 ......... 6 ......... 0 ........ 0


Bloody Pieterson

Can we have them back for next season please.....

Why don't Notts just go out & buy another lot. The 3 'Notts' players in question were Broad (who's only played for Leic), Sidebottom (ex Yorks) & Swann (ex Northants). Why bother developing players when youy can sign them up.

Fair comment.......but it's not as if it's just Nott's is it ?

Warwickshire seldom do it. Instead we rely on our vastly over-hyped youth setup.

So Warwickshire's Alex Loudon retires from the professional game at the ripe old age of ahem, 27. Reasons offered? To pursue business interests apparently. He averaged 83.88 with the ball this season and 33.90 with the bat. And people called Ashley Giles a pie thrower.

I must admit I'm not surprised about this. We wondered why Warwick weren't bowling Loudon when Yorks were making hay at Scarborough ... until they finally brought him on. Yorks have had some poor spinners over the years but Loudon was one of the worst I've ever seen. Even in the field it looked as though the guy would rather have been somewhere else.

I think he was clearly over-rated and a lot of people have said he carried the demeanour of one last season who had his mind elsewhere (a criticism that could've been labelled at our whole squad I believe). I just assumed that he wasn't happy working with Greatbatch as nobody else was. Problem is, we've lost Streak, Giles, Loudon and we're replacing them with Derbyshire players.

Who else have you signed in addition to Rankin? I only know aoub hin as he was rumoured to be coming north with Chris Taylor (who did sign). I must admit that Rankin didn't exactly look great for Derby in the Pro 40.

We've signed Botha as well. I don't know much about him other than he's a spinner who bats a bit.

Rankin doesn't sound great either, I just hope Alan takes him under his wing, who better to learn from ey?

Yorkies always think of Botha as a batsman who bowls a bit, but then Ant's highest score was against us in 2005.

I'm becoming slightly concerned. Derbyshire are currently signing players left, right and centre. I'm worried we're signing their cast offs in truth, they look like they could be quite a strong little outfit next year if injuries are good to them.

We're offering Michael Powell a benefit year next season as well. Couldn't believe he was captain for three years, it felt like much less but then it often does with Powell as the lad has seldom been fit since he made his debut in 1996. 7000 runs in 11 years of cricket, it's not a great return is it?

So...........will Simon Jones take flippers and a snorkel to Worc's with him ?

I just thought swimming was part of trying to get fit again

Shouldn't Worcs have signed Swann ?

I see from Ceefax that Notts have signed David Hussey for 2 years. Aqua will rightfully be pleased as D Hussey has been an excelent batsman whenever he's played in the Championship. Another Aussie who would walk into the England team who never gets a look in for them

The 2008 county fixtures are out at 11am tomorrow. This brings summer a bit closer ... & means we can start booking b&bs

We should probably start a Cricket 2008 thread, save us trawling through endless past posts should we need to.

Or you just click the "view last post" button and it takes you to the first of any posts you've not read...

The 2008 fixturesare out .... & I'll be most Yorkies are disgusted. During the season Yorks play two 4 day & 1 day games at Scarborough. Normally they have the 4 day starting on a Wed followed by the 1 day game on the Sun. The two visits are normally a minimum of 6 weeks apart.

This year the 1st one dayer is on August Bank Holiday Mon (Kent 25th Aug) with the 4 day game (vs Kent) starting on the Wed (27th). Another 1 day game follows on Sun 31st (Glamorgan). The final 4 day game is on the Wednesday (Sept 3rd vs Sussex). So rather than 2 lots of 4 nights in a hotel/b&b (travel up on the first day & home after the 1 dayer) days 'the faithful' will have to spend 12 days in accomadation with 3 'dead' days when there's no cricket. ... or else leave on Sunday 31st & return on Wed 3rd .... but this will require booking different places if it's actually possible to get in somewhere.

As it's 100 miles from my place to Scarborogh commuting isn't a viable option.

Basically Yorks are taking the p***


On the up side Somerset start the Taunton 4 day game against Yorks on Fri 6th June. This gives us 3 days cricket (Fri, Sat & Sun) for one day off work .... result

New Balls ?

It's a shame the rumours Moster heard about a certain cricketer turned out to be unfounded, oh the fun we could've had with this one.

'King Of Spain' back with England squad

This week has been a bad one for cricket lovers. Darren Lehmann has announced his retirement. Lehmann is an Aussie test batsman who played with great success for Yorkshire.

But it wasn't the number of runs that made Lehmann into a Yorks hero. Most test cricketers are now 'proper athletes' being able to run, eating correctly etc. Darren was 'plump' and scored hatfulls for runs whilst enjoying a pint, smoking & his idea of a balanced diet was a pork pie in both hands. Lehmann wasn't pciked for Aus for year because he was too slow .... yet in Yorks was famed for being able to take a quick single. Lehmann's batting was very simple ... he just hit the ruddy ball as hard as he could. It wasn't beautiful to watch, just very effective. We've always said the way to show youngsters how to bat was to say don't copy Darren. Lehmann's bowling looked totally inocuous yet he managed to take a number of important wickets.

Lehmann wasn't perfect (there was in incident of racist language that got him banned for a while & he tended to get out in silly ways in semi finals), but 'Boof' proved that you can beat the odds if you have talent (& a brain). I've a feeling we won't see his like again which is a crying shame.

p.s. Nearly forgot. Lemann was also a good guy who was normally willing to chat with fans.

In fairness Star, he's actually being touted as an aspiring young coach. He seems really well respected within the game and there were murmurings of him succeeding Duncan Fletcher as England coach at one point.

Granted ..... but why haven't you mentioned Salisbury signing for a certain midland county ?

Maybe I'm wrong but I've always viewed him as just about the most over-rated spinner in England, still, better than Botha I imagine.
Good article with Giles in a local rag on the weekend. He was talking about how he plans to move the club away from the Kolpak influence and concentrate on nurturing home grown talent. Dougie Brown has been appointed head of the academy and he's shaken up the whole of the backroom staff. I'm optimistic but I don't see success happening tomorrow it has to be said.

I was being naughty about Salisbury RtS, sorry.

I applaud Giles's idea ... but he'd better be careful. Look what's happened at Glamy who tried that route ... they ended up bottom of everything

Yeah the article stated that Glamorgan and Lancashire had purposely steered from the Kolpak route. We have done the opposite bringing in players like Pretorious, Carter, Trott and Groenweld. He's admitted it will come at the expense of our short-term success which could be a method to buy himself time but there you go.

Bloddy Lancs are a total bunch of hypocrits. The reason they shun Kolpak is that they can afford to sign other counties stars (Cork, Sutton, Loye played for other counties & Keedy was pinched from Yorks 2nds) & Law is now English.

'Hoggy' 5 for 25 off 9 as England get 'surprise' win

hoggard is bowling beautifully, sri lanka 42-5 and i'm glad i got up at 4.30 to watch this.

what a shame. i was always a fan of lehmann's . he never seemed to get a fair run at international level.
but he went out with a bang and retired in style. he hit 126 off 104 balls in the 50 over match for south aust. v west aust. then in his final first class match he hit 167 against west aust.
he obviously could have played the summer out but injuries have probably taken theit toll

this will be an interesting series. sri lanka will be hard to beat at home but if england can recapture some of their pre 2006-07 ashes form then they should beat the lankans.
sri Lanka were very poor in australia.they lost 2-0 in a two test series. their batting was ordinary except for sangakarra, their fielding was poor and their bowlers were very poor . australia's two 1st innings were 550 runs affairs. even murali had no joy.
i cant see the bowlers except for murali( at home ) troubling the likes of vaughan and pieterson.
and good news , just found the game live on fox

yeah, i saw a bit of your series on sky.

must admit, i still don't think that much of your attack post mcgrath and warne. but if you keep posting over 500, you can bully sides with attacking slip cordons. it will interesting to see what happens when you play away against a decent batting line up.

is there another team in world cricket with a decent batting line up ?
true we had room to move , as we posted big totals , ut i thought we bowled alright.
Brett Lee was very good , stuart clark is reliable , good line and length, and mitchell johnson is still very raw, but looks ok. the spin bowling situation isnt that good though. we did lose the best spin bowler in test history, so replacing him was always going to be difficult. stuart macgill is carrying injuries(knee) and didnt bowl well at all and looks likely to miss some of the indian test series. so the cupboard might be bare. as we have quite a few spinners in domestic first class but all are young not really impressive. the great hope nathan hauritz moved from qld to nsw and cant get a spot in the squad . beau casson (also moved to nsw from wa) is keeping him out of the team.
if macgill can get fit he will provide a good option but he is 36 so we must find a replacement

Not looking as good now ... England 2 behind with 4 wickets left. This is far worse than it sounds as England effectively have 4 no 11's ... namely Sidebottom, Panesar, Hoggard & Anderson.

btw Guess who forgot to set his alarm this morning. I woke up & turned the radio on just in time to hear the players go off for rain

sidebottom batted well this morning. worth getting up early for.

however, if we don't get early wickets tomorrow we'll end up hoping for rain.

so murali breaks the world record for taking wickets. each and everyone of them a no-ball.

Sorry Moster but I have to disagree. I've watched Murili live (for Lancs) through binoculars. Whilst his arm is aways bent for the majority of balls it stays at the same angle. Unfortunately for one or 2 balls an over the arm moves (a chuck). This is actually worse than chucking every ball as batsmen don't know whether or not to play a 'proper' or 'chucked' ball. Pedantic yes, but to me the difference is important.

p.s. Sri Lanka aren't alone. A few years ago we had Kirtley at Headingley. At the time James DID chuck every ball