“The real highlight was the abuse heaped on some hapless ancient in the pavilion who was holding up play by doddering down the steps. ‘Sit down. Either that or drop dead,’ shouted a stripling in the Grand Stand. A stripling of about 60, that is. Only at county cricket can the middle-aged feel young again” – Stephen Moss soaking up the colour at Lord’s for The Guardian.
Like many fans, we were all geared up to welcome the new county season with exaggerated enthusiasm as a means of defending it from threats pressing in on all sides. Until the first weekend threw up a series of excellent games that were their own best advert.
“Calls to the BCCI to seek clarification on this point have proved fruitless, however we have since been advised that Yuvraj will be required to represent India in this tournament, therein leaving us in an untenable position, leading to us make the decision to notify Yuvraj Singh’s representatives that we will not be pursuing our interest in bringing him to Lord’s” – Yuvraj Singh was prepared to play for Middlesex but, in the event, Middlesex was not prepared to sign Yuvraj Singh.
“Middlesex have signed Australian Adam Gilchrist for next year’s Twenty20 campaign and hope to recruit Indian batting great Sachin Tendulkar as well, the English county side said on Thursday” – Superb news for Middlesex fans…
“It says a lot about him that 35 of his 53 wickets were batsmen in the top six, so he gets top-order batsmen out with the new ball. He is his own person and doesn’t get too analytical about his action, which is a nice, high, strong action. He just likes to talk to other bowlers about bowling. If he does err, he doesn’t spray down the leg-side – he tends to drop a bit shorter. But you can’t be too critical of someone who has taken on such a workload at such a young age” – Middlesex directory of cricket Angus Fraser on the county’s basketball player turned fast bowler Steve Finn, 20, already tipped as a star of the next Ashes. No pressure, lad.
If the Stanford Super Series is slated to save cricket from its purportedly inevitable descent into the gloomy depths of unwatched five-day matches, then we’d better hope it can come up with something a bit more thrilling than the opening spectacle offered last night.
Today sees the first match in the controversial Stanford Super Series, kicking off with a contest between the Stanford Superstars and Trinidad & Tobago, and culminating in the Superstars’ match against the England team on November 1.