Window Cleaner

Well I couldn't say as far as Saints are concerned but in Hampshire's case I wouldn't be at all surprised if it isn't rather about money. They seem to keep a lot of players on the pay-roll who aren't quite good enough for really top level 4 day cricket.

Indeed, and the disasters will continue on a regular basis until we address the problem that everyone and his dog is aware of. We need a real opener, we needed one last season and the season before. A bloke capable of seeing off the new ball in difficult conditions on a regular basis. A right old stick in the mud knobber like Burns. Opening bat isn't a position to tart around with in the cavalier way that we've been doing.

Ouch, 27/4. Hopeless, just hopeless. Any bowler with a bit of variety in his quiver ridiculises us.

The limit on overs for bonus points is 110. Warks declare on 410/8, so we'll need to get at least 182 to make them bat again, and probably a fair few more to get the draw. Must be a bit over 80 overs left in the day. Haven't looked at the weather forecast though.

What an abysmal day for Hants. After getting 3 quick wickets this morning we never looked in the hunt for more. Hain given out caught behind looked to be a real gift from the umpire, think Hain thought so as well. Nothing much from Abbott or Abbas after lunch, Holland got the two wickets to fall after lunch. Fuller was absolutely awful and Dawson plugged away on a wicket where there was nothing for him and got slammed a bit towards the close. Whatever happened to the team that challenged for the title most of last season ?

More now needed, hoping for the tick soon then. Bowling looking pretty toothless, well Holland and Dawson that is, Fuller is just totally inconsistent.

Don't know if Barker is fully fit, if he actually is then Prest instead of him isn't looking like a smart move. Lad looks a bit iffy against decent seamers, then again most of our batters do most of the time. Might turn out to be a white ball wonder. Need some quick wickets when play starts in a few minutes.

Bit of a poor day for Hants. Couldn't watch all of it today but what I did see, apart from VInce, was pretty mediocre. Poor batting from most of the middle order and the bowling looked below par.

Middle order collapse. Rain seems to have changed something.

Really don't see that he'll make any much difference at either Leeds or Saints. Leeds don't defend well and can't score, they have acquired a lot of players from the Bundesliga that don't look good enough for the prem or are having difficulty in adapting. If Saints had 30 points, a manager like BFS might have some sort of chance with us, but as we don't............ Don't see many managers being able to get us 7 or 8 points more from our remaining games so we are toast anyway.

A fair few Northants player bowled in this match , especially by Fuller. Don't usually see so many these days. The full toss on middle stump yesterday looked particularly spectacular.

Belay my last ! Northants 149 all out, well Mc Manus didn't bat again, Fuller on fire with a 6 fer. Abbott however looked to be trying to bowl way too short. Will need to correct that in their second innings as he gave them a fair few free runs. Still we have over 300 to play with.

Bowling not looking particularly dangerous this morning. Might have difficulty in bowling them out twice if tomorrow is truncated by the weather. Mc Manus retired hurt due to the blow on the hand he got yesterday, don't know if he'll be able to bat or keep wicket.

Got the 4 batting points, game a bit disrupted by showers this morning. Prest ony made 5, might have missed his chance there as we might not bat again. Vince still going on 166, Brown approaching 50. Disciplined innings from Vince this time, although he did get dropped off a mistimed hook on 25.

A bit more like it today . Middleton got a duck though. No Barker, leaves room for Prest.

Don't pretend to understand our management decisions anyway. Ralph wasn't all that great in his last months but we sacked him and appointed two absolutely useless idiots to do the job. We've gotten it completely wrong by trying to be clever, spent (or rather wasted) 110 million or so to boot, now we need to clear them all out and start over with a completely new management team.

Much as expected. The moral here is that you don't win at the Oval by being 30/3 in both innings. You can't expect your bowlers to work miracles every time. Their commentators said yesterday that they consider 300 a par score on any Oval pitch....... then again they have a class top order. We just have to do something about our batting, need to drop Organ, put Vince and Dawson further down the order and stop expecting runs from Abbott, he's a regular number 10 bat nowadays, almost a rabbit like Abbas.

Wasn't even an attacking shot this time, it was just a lazy waft at a ball that didn't need any action at all. He's doing it all of the time now.

Had enough of Vince, he is just an easy wicket for any decent quick bowler. Drop him and put Prest in until he learns not to chase every sodding wide ball outside off. Going to lose.

Not working. Now struggling at 33/2, probably be 40 odd for 3 when Vince tries to hit everything out of the ground. That pasting we got from Abbott is looking a bit crucial now.

So a first innngs lead of 16 for Surrey, not bad at all. Should have been a FIL for Hants though. A couple of poorish overs from Abbott and Barker with the new ball allowed their Abbott to smash us around a bit. Thankfully we have Abbas though because Barker doesn't look anywhere near as dangerous as of yore . All in all a one innings game now. I hope we'll not have a disastrous start like that of Thursday.

Yay, batting point. Didn't look at all likely this morning.

About 65 million less per season in the Premier League economy I suppose. Good thing for football though and the betting sites will easily find other media to take their money.

Surrey's new ball force is impressive. If you have a weak link at opener your whole top order will be exposed. We have got the opening pair wrong again, Gubbins might as well open, he's usually facing within a few balls anyway. Dawson is way too high up the order, he should be batting at 6 or 7, he has no new ball technique. As for Vince, well he's always in a hurry isn't he, too much gig cricket I guess. Prest must be majorly hacked off. He can bat and yet he's on the sidelines whereas players who can't handle the new ball are getting a game

Oh dear...........