And it was followed by a complete dung-heap of a match. Those players really put the poo in Pune.

Is the one who, when someone said to him in Taunton, trophy in hand, "I never thought I'd be so happy to see a Yorkshireman holding that" replied quite bluntly with "I'm not from Yorkshire." Lancastrian in all but an accident of hospital positions.

It's nice to see that, after the blip of winning the Championship, Lancs are back to being sh*te.

And a robbery of land from the West Riding in the Boundaries Act of 1972. (still bitter)


Yes, very gratifying. (still bitter)

Kent beat Northants by an innings and 120 runs

Yorkshire in a real battle with Leeds/Bradford MCCU. Think these couple of weeks have been a wake-up call for anyone thinking promotion was a given. If Phil Jaques doesn't fire, we're in all sorts of strife. And he'd better get clearance to play as the Englishman he undoubtedly is *cough* so we can go get a bowler from somewhere. Desperate times.

Amazingly tense finish at Lord's yesterday, where Middlesex beat Surrey by 3 runs in a low scoring match.

The visitors began the day needing another 46 to win with six wickets left. The first three wickets fell for the addition of only nine of those runs, but a few meaty blows from Jon Lewis edged Surrey towards the target. Lewis was the only batsman who looked comfortable against some skilful swing and seam bowling, and if he'd managed to take a bit more of the strike once the real non-batsmen were at the other end I think we'd have won. After taking a single off the first ball of an over Lewis called Jade Dernbach down the pitch for a conversation. One can only assume he said something along the lines of "See if you can hit the next ball out of the ground". Or then again, perhaps Dernbach just completely ignored him. Dernbach 's brainless slog, head tilted back, body and limbs contorted in a horrible mess, sent the ball high into the air for a catch in the covers only a few yards from the pitch. He does it every bloody time. Every time you need him to just stay there while someone who knows what he's doing can grind out a few more runs at the other end he seems to imagine himself as Ian Botham and totally takes leave of his senses.

Jade Dernbach - I just don't see it.

Yorkshire in for Mitchell Starc to bolster the bowling. That'll do nicely. Let's produce another Test player for Australia eh?

To be fair, he is already a Test and ODI player for Australia.

Yorkshire's immediate need is bigger than any concerns over nationality though. I can't sit through a season of Patterson and McGrath as first change seamers.

Knew he'd played ODIs, didn't realise he had a Test cap already.
My comment about nationality was purely facetious, although with Bevan and Lehmann there was a period where we were producing more Test players for them than for us. At the same time, we also ended the international careers of Blewett and Elliott, Harvey to a lesser extent, so we're about square.