Window Cleaner

Good start apart from Vince holing out for 5. But it's a poncy, little, turnip patch ,out ground so we'll probably need 220+

Well that was a good watch. The Essex tubby wicky give out for nothing, probably the same as McDermott.

With the bowling that we have available , I'd say that against decent sides 180 is absolument "de rigeur". Crane and Ellis went for 89 between them yesterday, over half of our batting total. Maybe just an impression but Ellis looks to be trying too hard at times, loses accuracy and gets tonked. Prest made runs but a bit on the slow side really.

Hants cruising to a win. Middx bowling looks pretty poor though. Still ,good to watch Hants hitting at about 10 an over.

Catastrophic start to our T20 campaign. But what can you expect it's a scratch side to give everbody a game.

At the end of the day it's really rather simple. We spent what about 140 million on players who don't have (as of yet) the aptitude for the PL. We tarted about by sacking a manager who was getting the job done and appointed two others who clearly weren't up to the job. We got relegated which is exactly what we desreved for all of that. I mean Suleymana and Tall Paul for 40 million of so, we could have got a really decent player for that. What you want when you're spending those sort of sums is end product and those two didn't provide any of that.

So, we made a pretty good score in the end, seemed to take a while though. Kent batted out the 26 overs left to them at the end with no apparent difficulty. We'll have to hope for conditions that favour our bowlers a bit more this morning, otherwise we'll have difficulty bowling them out again. Not that I think that we have much chance of the Championship this season but with Warks already winning and Middx looking in difficulty against Surrey we need to win this one to be thereabouts.

Wheels have come off, 159/5. Same old problem, quick'ish bowlers on an overcast morning.

That we shall see, 2 wickets down this morning already. Still hopeful of 300 though.

Organ dropped for tomorrow's game, replaced by Weatherly in the 12. Don't know if that means he'll open with Middleton though. Barker back in the 12.

Well of course it isn't, but it allows players the choice of not playing the 4 day game if they have no test aspirations. Also limits the choice of overseas players and no doubt puts up the asking price for any desirable player to boot.

Chaps, it's only football, life goes on. Get a grip.

But worldwide gig cricket didn't exist in those days. England based players played for their county in the summer and took whatever winter role they could get. We used to live near the Sainsbury's , Peter delivered paraffin in the winter when he couldn't get a coaching job in Oz for the winter. True that was much earlier than the 90s though. Anyway I suppose the white ball only players, big stars apart, get less than the all competitions players; There are also a good few who don't play much white ball cricket. Barker plays very little and Gubbins, Abbott and Abbas don't seem to play in the short formats. Perhaps they get less than some. But the real problem is the fringe players who don't seem good enough for some competitions but are kept on anyway. I'm of thev opinion that if we farmed out Donald, Weatherly and maybe even Organ we'd have enough savings for a solid opener. Weatherley seems to be a bit "pistoned" as we say in France. Even got a hundred contract and hardly ever played. Might be a bit of nepotism somewhere in the mix. Then there's the case of Crane, no idea what we're doing with him.

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.