stevegrant

Euros. Converts to around £9.4m now, may have been slightly less when the deal was actually done.

Yep. Yeah, saying he's talking to the Football League about it again. They told him to **** off with it a few months ago, I don't see that anything's fundamentally changed for that viewpoint to be any different now. I thought Dyke becoming FA chairman might be a good thing, he's clearly got a bit of charisma and gravitas, but all of his ideas since he got the job have been utterly insane.

The proposed rules will make **** all difference, other than the loan part of it. Players who are internationals and represent one of the top 30 FIFA-ranked nations automatically get a work permit, while players who aren't in the international squad can usually get around the rules by obtaining an EU passport from somewhere like Spain, Italy or Portugal. Part of the proposal is that any player signed for a fee in excess of a specific figure (£10-15m has been suggested) would automatically get a work permit, but that seems like it's open to all sorts of abuse, and means that English clubs are then unable to be competitive with their transfer dealings. Twente would probably have been able to hold out for £10m from us for Dusan Tadic because at that point he automatically gets a work permit rather than having to go through a testing phase (Serbia are ranked pretty low by FIFA), rather than us being able to have a much lower bid accepted.

I know everyone knew Northamptonshire were out of their depth in the first division, but today's performance really is something else. Durham were eventually bowled out this morning for 392, and in reply Northants batted twice, but lasted a total of 40.2 overs for innings scores of 83 and 90. Durham's Chris Rushworth took insane match figures of 15-95 from 20 overs, while they brought Indian seamer Varun Aaron in for this game and he only got to bowl 7 overs in the match

Seems everyone's surprised Kent have enforced the follow-on, having been out in the field for 105 overs and with the wicket turning quite a lot already.

300 up, Ervine with a masterclass in strike rotation with the last man

Well that was a disastrous morning session Still 131 needed to avoid the follow-on, needs Ervine and Tahir to bat very well for a session and a half.

Edit: bugger, was going on 8 points for a draw when it's only 5

Need to bat pretty well here, no chance of a win at this stage but we need to be looking at the 400 runs inside 110 overs target to secure both a draw and maximum batting points. That'll leave us on 221 points heading to Cardiff. Essex are going to be on 207 when they beat Leicestershire, a defeat for us (if bowled out for under 200) could leave us just one point ahead

Given his posting history, I wouldn't be so sure.

OK, I'll humour you. Which "popoluar" (sic) papers have reported that, not only is Ron expected to jump ship to a shambles within three months of his appointment, but his brother, who only came here because he'd be working with Ron, is going to stay and take over? Actually, that's a rhetorical question. No paper has reported it, and it won't happen. You're mental.

Difficult to win the title from here, but Surrey now can't catch us.

And Surrey lose Buggers up our title hopes, but still, it's now between us and Essex for second place. We have a 22-point advantage with two games to play. The title's not completely out of the question, but we'd probably have to win both games now. With the weather forecast for next week, that seems highly unlikely.

Surrey are doing their best to **** this one up 112/2 at lunch, needing only 105 to win, they're now 164/7. If they were to lose, it would mean they cannot be promoted, as they'd be 24 points behind us but with two fewer wins, and Worcestershire would have promotion confirmed.

You'd need a separate customer number for the second ticket unless you're prepared to wait until Monday.

I suspect that a lot of people have been hedging their bets in order to get tickets for people who didn't qualify for a ticket through previous away game attendance, so I'd agree that they'll probably sell plenty today and tomorrow. Will be interesting to see if it makes general sale, but they seem to have judged the demand quite well in this instance, despite there having been complaints that we didn't appear to request an allocation of 9000.

Wish I'd waited a few days to get mine now, in block 20 which is on the side rather than behind the goal

Yeah, a couple of hours of play has turned this game from "formality" to "tricky chase". Jack Shantry has his maiden century (previous best of 55 in 56 matches), and Worcestershire put on 179 for the 8th and 9th wicket. 216 ahead with the last man in. Edit: 217 to win, last man out, leaving Shantry stranded on 101.

They'd still be 20 points behind Worcestershire, so would need to win well and hope Worcestershire get smashed in their last game.

And Essex duly win inside 3 overs. That's Kent now mathematically out of the running, so I guess we could see them make a few changes to their team when they head to the Rose Bowl next week. I'd fancy us to beat them anyway, but if they're chucking a couple of rookies in place of some experienced players as well, that's a bonus

With the Saeed Ajmal news over the last couple of days, I wonder whether Worcestershire would be anywhere near promotion without him bowling his now-proven-illegal action? His record for them in first class games is incredible, they won 5 of the 9 games he played in, drawing the other 4, and he took 63 wickets at a frankly insane average of 16.31. We could have had promotion wrapped up already had his action been tested sooner.

Highly rated by them, apparently not so much by anyone else, they were pretty much publicly hawking him for sale in January as they thought they'd lose him for **** all in the summer, but nobody seemed to show any actual interest, so he signed a new contract with them.

Lovely finish

For who?

We may well lose on Monday, but this is probably the best Swiss team in their history (not saying a massive amount, admittedly, but they are no mugs), and let's face it, this qualifying campaign is the dictionary definition of "going through the motions". We'll beat all four of the other teams in our group, and it doesn't matter whether we top the group or not as both qualify automatically. Who would you replace him with? Assuming the FA wants to stick with an Englishman, there really are no outstanding candidates.