stevegrant

Said without the slightest hint of irony, I'm sure

I'm sure the forum detectives will report back in due course

Whatever Pinnacle's contingency plan is, they're going to have to get their arses in gear to implement it. The Swiss group, whoever they are, have flown in today for talks with Fry - I can only presume they're relatively advanced-stage talks otherwise they'd have probably done it by teleconference IMO.

Given current affairs, I wouldn't necessarily say that's something that would earn him much kudos

Quick request - anyone got the link to the Jackson interview from last summer? Cheers

I might as well write an article on the main site here saying that Jackson's bid is based entirely on asset-stripping the club. The article would be based on about as many facts, i.e. none (known) whatsoever.

Christ. :smt120

Looking at their other pre-season games, it looks like we are... Aldershot Town v QPR - Saturday 11th July 2009 (3.00pm) Forest Green Rovers v QPR - Tuesday 21st July 2009 (7.45pm) Oxford United v QPR - Friday 24th July 2009 (7.45pm) Wycombe Wanderers v QPR - Tuesday 28th July 2009 (7.45pm) QPR v Southampton - Saturday 1st August 2009 (3.00pm)

Totally different circumstances though, the non-appeal clause for Leeds was for the 15-point deduction they were handed for failing to exit administration in accordance with the Football League's requirements. They did not seek to appeal the statutory 10-point deduction for going into administration.

Always looking for the positive in everything...

I'd hardly say that's a new thing - my old primary and secondary schools both used to ask for "voluntary contributions" to meet the cost of every school trip I ever went on, and I left the primary school in 1995 and the secondary school in 2000 - they also used the guilt trip line.

I'm intrigued by Liam Dawson's demotion to part-time bowler even behind the likes of Sean Ervine who can often take wickets but usually goes for a hatful of runs - he's also been dropped from the 4-day side as well...

ESPN might go for it - doubt Sky would want it.

Considering they're going off-air, they would be charging you for a service that won't be provided. Sounds illegal to me.

As per the title. If you've still got a subscription, I'd cancel it fairly sharpish. Contacting anyone in customer services will be even more of a nightmare than normal!

The fact that a lot of people have still been pinning their hopes on a return for Simon Jones probably tells you all you need to know there. I'll be surprised if he returns from his latest injury setback, sadly.

He's played in two County Championship games in the past couple of weeks, and presumably will play Twenty20 this week, so he is at least getting games under his belt. Whether it's enough, I'm not sure. The main person who insists that he's a star all-rounder is Flintoff himself. Until he comes to terms with the fact that he's not a world-beating batsman anymore, the problem will remain.

Here's another way of looking at it: Score range - number of occurrences (not out) [opponents] 0-9 - 8 [WI(a) 1, WI(h) 1, SL(a) 2, IND(a) 1, IND(h) 3] 10-19 - 4 (3 not out) [iND(h) 2, WI(a) 1, SL(a) 1] 20-29 - 1 [WI(h) 1] 30-39 - 2 [WI(a) 1, IND(a) 1] 40-49 - 3 [WI(h) 2, IND(h) 1] 50-99 - 8 (1 not out) [iND(a) 1, WI(a) 2, WI(h) 3, SL(a) 2] 100+ - 2 (2 not out) [WI(h) 1, WI(a) 1] Clearly scored heavily against the West Indies, but then we've played a lot of games against them with Prior in the side. Personally, I like the fact that he's scored big runs on the subcontinent, and that 10 of his 28 innings have produced scores of 50 or more. For me, that's an excellent conversion rate regardless of the opposition. Also, it's interesting to note his averages based on his batting position: 6 - 3 innings at 117 :shock: 7 - 18 innings at 43.64 8 - 7 innings at 36.67

Probably - now that Setanta have lost the Premier League rights, they'll have cancellations left, right and centre and will almost certainly go to the wall. ESPN will then run their own operation and the football will be on a new channel, rather than their current ESPN America and ESPN Classic channels. So essentially you'll have to pay again, but it'll probably just be a replacement.

Exactly as I would expect. Mustn't grumble for the princely outlay of £0.00 per month, tbf.

They will also be charging an extra monthly subscription like Setanta. Hopefully they use the right satellite to broadcast from, unlike Setanta...

Quote of the day

Not seen it myself, but apparently SSN has said the Football League will make an announcement at 6

Two points: 1. To be fair, an average of nearly 50 in 28 Test innings isn't particularly "hit and miss", IMO. 2. I would normally agree that as the wicket-keeper is such a specialist position, you should get your best keeper in there and not worry about his batting. However, we have the slight issue that is Andrew Flintoff. Until the other day when he hit 54 against Hampshire, he'd done absolutely nothing with the bat for a very long time, so it's difficult to count on him as a batsman. Similarly, while Stuart Broad looks very promising and will probably become a bona-fide all-rounder in years to come, he's still pretty raw as a batsman and again can't be counted upon to score big runs consistently. With Flintoff in the side, if he has a bad run, we're effectively going in with only 6 batsmen. Bring Foster into the picture ahead of Prior and we're then down to 5, which is just a recipe for disaster. If Flintoff a) gets his form back with the bat, or b) gets injured again, it might be worth looking at bringing Foster in and possibly using Prior just as a batsman, or bringing someone else in. However, Prior's figures stack up against any other English batsman, and he's generally been batting at 6 and 7 rather than at the top of the innings, so dropping him wouldn't be anywhere near my thoughts at the moment.

Can't really argue with that, although still far from convinced about Shah, and Panesar's form is very worrying - 6 wickets at an average of nearly 87! Apparently Bell's going to captain the Lions team in a warmup game against the Aussies at Worcester (assuming it's not flooded). Clearly most of the first XI picks itself: Strauss Cook Bopara Pietersen Collingwood Prior Flintoff Broad Swann Anderson plus one from Onions, Rashid, Panesar, Bresnan and Sidebottom. I would guess it would be either Panesar or Rashid at Cardiff because it's a ridiculous turning wicket, but Onions and Sidebottom will come into the equation for the other games. While Bell's been in decent form for Warwickshire, I still don't see him getting in ahead of Bopara any time soon. His chance might come if Flintoff gets injured again.