Posts from ‘May, 2009’

Attendances for the T20 Cup so far this season has been poor, and now we will be lumbered with another overblown exercise in nothingness to go along with it. The fact that the bigwigs are insistent on two T20 tournaments shows the muddled thinking. Essentially, they are championing change without actually having to change anything.

We all knew this several weeks ago really, but now it has been confirmed that Adil Rashid will take Freddie’s place
in the England squad.

This means that Flintoff has six weeks to get himself ready for the Ashes, with the possibility of four championship games for Lancashire to hone his match fitness.

According to a report from Sky Sports today, Cricket Australia have requested that the tourists be allowed to field 12 players during their first class warm-up matches against Sussex and England Lions, allowing them to replace a batsmen with a bowler when they are in the field.

Knowing as we did that West Indies’ players weren’t too keen on being here, it is no surprise that England took the ODI series 2-0. And we didn’t learn much about the players that we didn’t already know.

Many had written off Sussex’ season before it had even begun. Today they reached the semi-final of the Friends Provident Trophy, beating Somerset by six wickets.

Giles Clarke has revealed that the ECB has rejected three “big-money offers” for one-off Twenty20 matches. So, well done there.

There is a new cricket bat doing the rounds that is supposed to revolutionise the game. It is called the Mongoose.

In Yorkshire it has a tendency to rain. Every now and again. Yorkshire CCC knows this, therefore, they decided to spend £600,000 of ECB funding installing a new drainage system at Headingley, which they didn’t finish until April. Today, the weather said “oh yeah, well drain this”. To which Headingley replied “nay lad, not worth t’bother”.

England’s ability to over-theorise and complicate the game of cricket is legendary. Ever since I became involved in Ashes battles, I’ve felt that Australia could rely on some assistance from the England selectors.

So said Ian Chappell some years ago.

Blinkered Ashes Reporting season is well underway. Patrick Kidd, of The Times’ Line and Length blog, thinks England’s inevitable defeat will be all due to the practice the Aussies have had in England over the years. Here’s my alternative take.