stevegrant

Dunno about that, Durham got away without any deductions when 15 wickets fell on day 1 and 17 on day 2 a few weeks back...

Elsewhere, Lancashire v Surrey has already been abandoned for the day without a ball bowled, and more rain forecast for tomorrow, which I guess means Friday and Saturday will be a frantic bonus-point chase with no chance of victory for either side. Which is fine Yorkshire seem to have the upper hand against Kent which I guess is both good and bad for us: good because it drags Kent into the mix, but bad because Yorkshire are only 5 points behind us with a game in hand. A Nottinghamshire win at Sussex would be nice, but Sussex are currently 199/4, so looking likely to post a big total and probably bat until tomorrow lunch.

Because they'd already got the points on the board earlier in the season. If I remember rightly, they only lost 3 or 4 times at home all season.

I'd take a 3 or 4 point deduction in exchange for at least 3 bonus points and 14 points for the win!

I don't mind the lower tier, as long as you're not on the front couple of rows the view is fine. The upper tier is very cramped, not entirely sure how they justify it being £5 more expensive than the lower tier.

You can do a bank transfer, you know...

Hampshire agreed to play one county championship game away from the Rose Bowl every year starting from this year so that the grounds we used to use occasionally can still host county cricket every now and then. Therefore I assume there'll be a game at Portsmouth and Bournemouth in the next couple of years as well.

Lower tier's £25, I think I'll be taking that option.

They wanted to buy Surman as a direct replacement for James Harper, who is a central midfielder.

Stephen O'Halloran. There's a good reason why he didn't play, he was absolutely rubbish.

26/3, Chanderpaul gone for 6

That was the first thought that sprung to my mind as well

Added to the fact that Loftus Road is a complete and utter dump.

If they perform well, I'm sure the deals will be renewable. However, if it turns out that they're rubbish (which I'm sure they won't be, mind you) and don't get in the team, we can then send them back without having to pay half a season's worth of wages.

The number 10 was already taken when he signed, and he's got some stupid "thing" about having to have the number 10 shirt, so he asked for 19 but to put a + sign in between so it looks like 1+9 (which of course equals 10)

The pitch at Basingstoke will be a completely unknown quantity, I'd expect it to be a fairly low-scoring game.

£30!?!?!?!?!?

From a fairly selfish point of view, I'd like Arsenal away, as I've not been to the Emirates yet. We're not going to win the competition, there is very little prize money available for the Carling Cup and fans across the country clearly aren't too fussed by it either. Get a big money pay-day from a 60,000 crowd, probably a one or two goal defeat and then we can concentrate on what's most important, the league.

Not only have Apple been given a bollocking by the Advertising Standards Authority for their recent TV advert which claims "all the parts of the internet are available on the iPhone" when Apple have disabled the display of Flash or Java-based content, but it's also been revealed that there is a security flaw which will affect anyone who password-protects their iPhone. Link

As far as I could tell, Birmingham lined up in the same formation as last week, and they attempted to play the same way as well. However, in the first half we had far too much energy for them. They started better in the second half, had a lot of possession in the first 20 minutes of the second half but did nothing of any note with it. JP then brought Stern John on and moved McGoldrick out to the right, as we weren't keeping the ball in their half at all unlike the first half and that seemed to work a treat. We saw a lot more of the ball and players were able to get forward to support John and Lallana who seemed to move forward into a more advanced "free role" sort of position. Once we did that, suddenly the energy seemed to return and Birmingham didn't have an answer for it. I remember a 5-minute spell where Birmingham players would take a good look at where they were passing the ball to, and STILL pass it straight to one of our players! Also, one key thing we did defensively was keep a much closer eye on Phillips. He barely had a kick against both Thomas and Cork.

According to Jonathan Agnew's blog post on the BBC site, there was absolutely no sideways movement at all. Apparently the South Africans were booed off, and I don't blame the crowd really. They've paid good money for a 50-over-a-side match, and the match is over inside 38 overs because the South Africans' effort and desire was so poor.

I thought at the time it was more reminiscant of the Beardsley shuffle. Either way, it made Ridgewell look pretty stupid, although he shouldn't have been on the pitch at the time anyway.

No, but they do sell tickets at the information desk/Mayflower ticket kiosk about 20 yards from the West Quay store. However, seeing as they basically tap into the online system, you almost certainly won't be able to buy for tonight's game from there.

Doubt it. Best to get to the ticket office as, by the look of things, they're expecting it to be very busy with people collecting and purchasing tickets.

Yes