Finn on Fire!

I’ve not really rated Steven Finn, having seen him toil away for many an hour with the Middle.   For his time on the field he just did not get many 5 wicket hauls.  It seems that this season he is out to prove me wrong!

It is day 2 of the Worcester v Middlesex match and he has taken 9 for 37 and 14 for 106 for the match.  A bowler that England has not managed to knacker and now the stuff of legend!!

And the First 5 fer of the Season? Finn!

Steve Finn has taken the first 5 wicket hall of the season, for Middlesex at New Road.  Hurrah!

Hooray It’s The Start of the Season!

The Season; it used to start just before May!

The blog the Corridor has also noted this

” Last year it started on April 15; in 2008, it was the 16th. 2007? The 18th. The first Championship matches of the new millenium began on April 26″.

What is the point for this seasonal creep stupidity.  They actively want people to turn up and freeze, that is if the weather or bad light does not intervene.  They want cold players risk more injury?

I know Airlines are starting to sponsor Counties, but the carbon footprint does need to be addressed.

Start scheduling championship matches back into the summer – there is that talk about playing the first few out of the country now because someone has just noticed that early April is not a time when you should be playing cricket…..Abu Dhabi and Barbados, are not British or local?

Actually the weather is set for fair, so hopefully it will be a nice weekend [and that is rare]!

For a spot of what team is who you could look at Dan’s cricket blog. He has quite an extensive resume of the teams for this season.

Suave; A Man on a Mission!

As the county season is soon to be upon us, I will introduce to you my good friend Sauve.  A long-standing pillar of the cricket blogging community,  I find him refreshing and debonair.

He is off on a mission to the centre of the nebulous thing that is the County Championship – he may be some time and we wish him the very best of luck.

This could be the last season of the Championship as we know it – the sharman at the ECB are mulling over the entrails of last nights run over urban fox as we speak right now – divining the best configuration for the future format of this most important of English sporting endeavours.  Several of us have a bad feeling about this.

Haling from Essexshire, he will be starting his odyssey at the Ford County Ground, Chelmsford, at Essex’s first game of  the season against Hampshire on 9th April [so no not summer yet…Essex will also be our first opponents of the season next week] You can keep up to date with Sauve’s progress on Twitter @seasonstands and also via his couple of blogs A Season in the Stands; which will be tales from his journey.  And the old faithful republiquecricket. He will be working his way round all 18 county grounds.  He is also featured in Wisden’s cricket blog.

If things go well this season for both of us we will meet up at the finale of the County season, at the Durham v Somerset match.  As both the Championship and what happens to it are subjects close to my heart I expect there could be some updates on his progress on these very pages before that date.

The Mighty Tim Murtagh Top Scores Against Durham!

Middlesex bowler Tim Murtagh, stood out in the MCC side as being the most able to cope with the Durham onslaught.  Tim top scored with a mighty 55 not out.

In the MCC match the colours were reversed to those in this picture – Tim wearing white and the ball being pink!

My IPL team in shock win!

I’m feeling all rose tinted from tonight’s KKR performance – so here is a picture of a rose tinted Murali, playing for Middlesex.

It seems that the Kolkata Knight Riders are the but of many a joke in IPL circles – but not today.  From a dreadful start, and some poor fielding they salvaged quite an entertaining win.

ITV 4 were quite neutral – as in non annoying in their coverage.  So I will give this IPL another go.

It is such a shame that our domestic completion is not available in the same way.  Bizarre even!