A ticket stub from Gillingham v Walsall (January 30, 2010) goes to the first person who can explain the following set of figures.

8 Botham, Gatting,
7 Gower
6 Cowans, Smith, Tavare
5 Lamb, Randall, Willis
3 Cook, Foster, Fowler
1 Dilley

Great to see Ralph Waite showing all the old magic in NCIS last night. Perhaps the greatest actor of all time, Waite has clearly still got it all. The charm, the timing, the gravitas, the cheeky smile.

And he's looking in remarkably good nick for 81.

Let's not forget that Ralph supplied the world with nine years of pure joy with his portrayal of John Walton senior in 'The Waltons', perhaps most memorably of all in the 200th episode of the series, at the start of the ninth and final season, when he visited president Franklin D. Roosevelt to attempt to clear his black friend Harley Foster (adroitly played by Hal Williams) from a fabricated criminal charge.

In the United States of America, Ralph Waite is often referred to as "The Dennis Amiss of acting."

In the light of Mark Greatbatch's appointment as New Zealand coach I'd like to wish all the very best to the journalists who cover the Black Caps.

Among comments uttered by "Batch" following his unveiling, these caught my eye. You will notice, if you look carefully, a formidable early candidate for the "Under-statement Of The Century" award. (The bit about results).

Batch: "I think it [being director of cricket at Warwickshire] was a good learning experience. It didn't end as well as I would have liked, results-wise but I'm hoping after 27 years in cricket - playing, coaching and being involved - I can use that experience to go forward and be successful with this Black Caps group."

Reporter: "You were accused of distrusting flair in England. How would you respond to that?

Batch: "I love flair. I remember seeing Jesse Ryder score 260 as a young lad in Hawke's Bay and flair is a key element of a player's game. I suppose it's about moulding that when you are going on your journey of becoming a really good player. Flair is a big part of it."

JANUARY, 2010. The snow which has covered the ground for weeks has gone but the air remains bitterly cold. Freezing fog lies thick over the countryside that straddles the border between Warwickshire and Worcestershire.

I drive slowly, carefully along twisting roads, peering into the mist. I'm a man on a mission. I have come in search of Frank Field.

Specifically, of the roots of Frank Field. Or Ernest Frank Field, to be precise. Fast bowler for Warwickshire from 1897 to 1920. One of the most important figures of the club's early history but one of the least celebrated. 'Honest Frank' died 76 years ago but it is he who has brought me here, nosing my car through the fog past Alcester, today.

Think of Warwickshire's early days and Herbert Bainbridge and Dick Lilley spring to mind. Billy Quaife and Tiger Smith. Frank Foster. The Bears' first championship triumph in 1911 is considered, principally, the feat of Foster. Fair enough, 'FRF' was the star. Brilliant all-rounder, bold leader and true maverick.

'EFF' was none of those. A terrible batsman he was happy as a foot-soldier and certainly no maverick. Just a rock solid professional cricketer and team man. And, in his pomp, a fearsome fast bowler. The Bears would not have triumphed in 1911 without him. Field was a magnificent servant to Warwickshire yet he spent much of his early life in Worcestershire having entered the world in a sylvan spot a six-hit away from that county. My mission is to find that spot.

Field was born on September 23, 1874 in Weethley Hamlet. Now I'm pretty conversant with most Warwickshire villages, however small, but not this one, right on the county's western edge. Weethley lies halfway between Worcestershire towns Redditch and Evesham but is claimed for the Bear and Ragged staff by a bulge in the county border. If Frank had been born a short distance in any of three directions all his wickets would have benefited Worcestershire.

That Weethley Hamlet is tiny is clear from a spot of research. "At first sight, Weethley seems to have little about it," offers one source, adding rather dismissively, "its chief landscape feature, the church, is only of the 19th century." It shares a parish council with neighbouring Arrow which, though hardly a sprawling metropolis, takes precedence. Evesham Abbey held Weethley in the 14th century and in 1344 the Musard family raided the parish, killing three abbey servants and stealing several hundred sheep. That was the last notable event there - until September 23, 1874.

So I know this place is small. How small? The sun is struggling through now but impotently, the mist refusing to burn away as I take the A422 past Alcester and Arrow. There's a left turn to Weethley. It's small and I miss it. I turn round in Inkberrow. Back towards Arrow. Right.

The fog is frustrating because I have come to explore but beside the B4088 there is a sign: "Weethley". I drive on expectantly. There's a house or two, but quite new, certainly not what I'm looking for. Then another sign, in bland, modern design, pointing right. "To St James's Church". It's a cul-de-sac. Is this the place?

I turn up a narrow track. There is another sign - brown, broken and rustic, like a prop from an old horror movie: "Weethley Hamlet". This is the place.

I drive on up a muddy, leaf-strewn lane for 30 seconds then the track ends. In front of me is the church by a pond. Beside and behind the church are fields rolling down into a valley. Even amidst the mist it's clear this place is stunningly beautiful. And here is St James' where, 136 years ago, Ernest Frank Field - tiny baby, huge, lumbering fast-bowler of the future - was baptised.

In the churchyard are monuments to Charles and Elizabeth, Frank's grandparents. The vast base of a dead tree, several metres across, among the graves, pre-dates the church. It must have towered in 1874. The view all around is spectacular.

I walk back into the hamlet. Right here did Frank's parents John and Maria, stroll with their youngest in arms, his six brothers and sisters perhaps playing and chasing round them. This is the place. But I want more. In which house was Frank born?

A dozen or so properties line the wayside. Some are quite new but which of the others might it be? Now I have a giant slice of that ingredient most precious to any researcher. Luck.

A man arrives to tend the churchyard. He married a Weethley girl 50 years ago and knows the settlement inside out. He listens to my story and reveals that, way back, the hamlet was just one farm. This makes sense because Frank's father farmed 260 acres. All the buildings here in 2010, it transpires, are either new-built or redeveloped barns. Except one. The chap points to the original house. "That's got to be the place," he said.

The farmhouse is still a home so I don't look too obtrusively. But it has a true old farmhouse look with weather-beaten brickwork and handsome, glowering windows. There are hedged gardens then fields beyond. Frank Field was less than two years old when his father died and his mother took her children to grow up in Pershore in her native Worcestershire but was it in this garden that "Honest Frank" first wrapped his tiny fingers round a ball?

In retrospect, Ray Illingworth should have enforced the follow on when Australia were all out for 235, with a first-innings deficit of 235, against England in the sixth Test at Adelaide in 1971.

A newspaper report from Monday September 27, 1897.

"GREAT CRICKETERS' FADS"

Everybody has some peculiarity and cricketers are no exception to this rule. Most of the big players have some little fancy or fad (says the Golden Penny).

Dr Grace, for instance, likes a dark-coloured bat. He uses half a dozen bats alternately; they are made specially for him, weigh about two and a quarter pounds and cost a guinea. Stoddart, on the other hand, will have a light-coloured bat, and none other. Many cricketers take a fancy to one bat and stick to it through better and worse. Stoddart had a bat rehandled; later it was necessary to let two big pieces of wood into the blade so that only a mere fraction of the original bat remained, but still the great A.E's affection for it remained undiminished.

Lohmann sticks to the same bat as long as he can; he will have it pegged, wrapped, rebladed and then newly handled and though it is a different bat he likes it as much as ever. FS Jackson cuts his bats up badly but as long as the maker can keep them together, F.S will not buy a new one. AN Hornby is said to have used the same bat in matches for seven years and George Giffen used the same bat last season as on his visit to England in 1893. Bobby Peel and Abel also treat their bats very carefully and use them for a long time.

Most batsmen have a fatal figure. SMJ Woods says if he can make 85 he can make a century; he has never yet reached 85 without making a century. If Sir TC O'Brien can make 20 without giving a chance he says he feels he can make a hundred. MR GHS Trott, the Australian skipper, says he's always nervous until he's broken his duck; he counts his runs until he has ten to his credit, then forgets all about the scorer until he is in the nineties. Ninety-five is his critical number; when he's 99 only one hit is necessary to gain the coveted century, while with 95 at least two strokes must be made.

Very few stumpers stand in the same manner behind the wickets. The Rev. AP Wickham has one hand on each knee as the bowlers delivers the ball. Butt, of Sussex, places his hands behind his ears as if to assist his hearing.

Bobby Peel, when put on to bowl, always delivers the first ball with his cap on; but then he takes it off and hands it to the umpire and does not put it on again until he is taken off bowling.

Humphreys, the Sussex lob bowler, always has his right sleeve longer and wider than his left. It used to hang down over his hand, flapping and flying about. It attracted the attention of the batter and then suddenly the ball would appear from its midst. When the Australians were here in 1893 CTB Turner wore a glittering stud in his shirt and one batsman objected to it as he said it attracted his attention so he could not follow the ball.

In a chilling flash of "where-the-hell-did-all-that-time-go?" realisation it has occurred to me that I have beat on the Bears beat for a decade.

It has been a privilege and a pleasure, mostly. Sometimes, just a little bit less so....

2000
On May 1, 2000, I reported on my first Warwickshire match, a National League game against Hampshire at Northlands Road. To my horror, it produced a big story.
Allan Donald seriously injured himself falling on a boundary fence. This meant I had to collar the coach, post-match, to ascertain the damage.
With trepidation I, a total nonentity on his cricket-reporting debut, called the legend that was Bob Woolmer as he drove north. It was the first time we had spoken. He was helpful, charming and humorous. "A.D's in the passenger seat beside me," he said. "I can confirm that he will live."
Blimey, I thought (accustomed to the grudging offerings of football managers). If the biggest names in cricket are that civilised, this might not be a bad job.
Woolmer's love of cricket was always palpable but his second spell as Warwickshire coach tested it. A wet 2000 season (1,600 overs lost to rain) brought some one-day success but failure to escape the championship second division. After the final game Neil Smith was sacked as captain and replaced by Michael Powell. Donald's retirement, after dismissing Kevin Dean with his last ball for his beloved Bears, added to the sense of pending transition.

HIGH SPOTS
1. Being paid to watch cricket.
2. Sitting in the Grand Stand at Lord's after a rain break watching Allan Donald bowl to Justin Langer and pondering the history of that magical venue.
3. Nattering with John Major during a one-day game at Whitgift. It can't be an entirely awful country where a former Prime Minister, bodyguards either side, is happy to pause and chat about spin bowling.

LOW SPOTS
1. Fending off a livid Bob Woolmer after a former Warwickshire player told me that Michael Powell was to be made captain, information which, at that stage, existed formally only in papers on Woolmer's desk.
2. Dealing with Ed Giddins.
3. Rain.

2001
Promotion to the championship First Division was achieved but there was little joy at the end of the season. The decisive victory arrived in the final game at Derby where before the opening day - September 12 - players lined up in the middle and everyone stood in silence following the Twin Towers atrocity.
It was a sombre, surreal conclusion to a season which brought the requisite promotion in four-day cricket but a worsening atmosphere off the field at Edgbaston. As the relationship between Woolmer and chairman Mike Smith soured, Powell, at just 26, had to captain the team amid increasing off-field rancour. Understandably, his batting average diminished, but his stature as a man grew. Powell remains one of the most selfless and admirable of the 28 men to have captained Warwickshire.
While Powell's batting suffered Ian Bell's blossomed. He became the Bears' youngest century-maker at 19 years and 115 days while Jim Troughton launched his senior career with a nifty 27 against Worcestershire and Mark Wagh entered the history books with 315 against Middlesex at Lord's. But Wagh was among those in the thoes of becoming so ground down by the Edgbaston politics that he would ultimately leave.

HIGH SPOTS
1. The elegant and timeless glory of Hove. The deckchairs. The seagulls. Bob Woolmer, players and supporters mingling and talking cricket in the pub.
2. Dealing with Charlie Dagnall and Alan Richardson.
3. Mark Wagh's 315 at Lord's. Compiled on a shirt-front, yes, but super batting and a slice of history.

LOW SPOTS
1. A minute's silence at Derby following the horror of 9/11.
2. Driving round the Leeds city centre loop 143 times before finding the hotel.
3. Leicestershire v Warwickshire at Grace Road in the Norwich Union League.

2002
Uncertainty over Woolmer's future lingered until in early July, during a rain-ruined draw at Maidstone, he confirmed he would leave at the end of the season. His final year with the Bears was his least enjoyable but most players remained fiercely loyal to him and they delivered a farewell trophy by beating Essex in the Benson and Hedges Cup final. Shaun Pollock's second ball removed Nasser Hussain to supply the perfect start. The end arrived, after an eye-catching cameo from Troughton, with Bell coolly steering Warwickshire home.
Twenty days earlier, Troughton had lodged one of the great maiden centuries for Warwickshire, a sumptuous 131 on a dead Rose Bowl track. While the left-hander emerged, however, poor Wagh endured the agony of a wrecked knee sustained in a pre-season football game.
Powell's side finished championship runners-up, 44.75 points behind Surrey who they beat in a remarkable match after following on at The Oval. Woolmer's reign finished with a spectacular win over Sussex at Hove as the Bears scored 405 in the fourth innings to seal the runners-up spot. Exit, after one final convivial natter in 'Sussex Cricketer' pub at the Sea End, Bob Woolmer. Enter John Inverarity.

HIGH SPOTS
1. Alan Richardson's 91 (previous career-best:17) against Hampshire at Edgbaston.
2. Opening a bottle with Michael Powell after the B&H Cup final in the Lord's dressing room - one place I never thought I would visit.
3. Four journalists nobly and doggedly clinging to ropes and tent pegs to prevent the press tent taking off in a gale at Stone while I met a deadline during Warwickshire C&G Trophy game in Staffordshire.

LOW SPOTS
1. Dealing with Melvyn Betts.
2. Arriving at Old Trafford at 7am for the third day of a rain-ruined championship match having skedaddled from the hotel at the earliest possible moment just in case a person with whom I had become acquainted late the previous night came back round.
3. Rain.

2003
The word 'convivial' does not apply readily to Inverarity. He regarded journalists as pond life to be avoided whenever possible, which made it difficult for them to pass his thoughts on to the supporters who help pay his wages.
The Australian's coaching and motivational skills were considerable, though, and would bring Warwickshire the biggest domestic prize of all. But his first season was mediocre. The Bears finished mid-table in both First Divisions, lost in the C&G Trophy quarter-finals and reached the final of the inaugural Twenty20 but were then thrashed by Surrey.
Powell endured another difficult season and resigned the captaincy to try to reignite his batting. Leading the side was not made easier by a shifting playing staff with the bowling in particular having little stability. Shifts of varying length and efficiency were put in by, among others, Waqar Younis, Michael Clark, Corey Collymore, Melvyn Betts and Collins Obuya.
Ah, Mr Obuya. The brainwave of chairman of cricket Andy Lloyd, Kenyan spinner Obuya was signed on the strength of bowling well in a match on telly. His first wicket for Warwickshire, encouragingly, was Kevin Pietersen. Less encouragingly, Pietersen was on 221 at the time. Obuya returned home "injured" after three months.

HIGH SPOTS
1. Sitting in a pub in Abergavenny, listening to Vanburn Holder, who had umpired at Collins Obuya's end as the Kenyan made his Warwickshire debut, offer his measured and charming opinion on the slow bowlers' work.
2. Watching the artistry of Mushtaq Ahmed at Hove.
3. Dealing with Michael Powell.

LOW SPOTS
1. Back trouble.
2. Rain.
3. Dealing with Andy Lloyd.

2004
Few people expected Warwickshire to challenge for the championship in 2004. And few suspected, when the Bears went top in early June, they would remain there. But fuelled by Inverarity's intensity and the shrewd, hard-headed captaincy and brilliant batting of Nick Knight, they clung on to bring the title to Edgbaston for the sixth time.
The achievement was built upon runs, principally from Knight, Bell and Jonathan Trott. New captain Knight's first objective in every game was to build a huge total, however long it took, to insure against defeat. His policy worked as Warwickshire finished the season unbeaten. They won only six matches, a record low for champions, but in awkward moments, showed the resilience of champions with the likes of Dougie Brown, Brad Hogg and Tony Frost contributing vitally.
With the coach's focus squarely on first-class cricket, Warwickshire were relegated in the totesport League but history was made when Stratford-upon-Avon hosted its first championship match. Cruelly, the game with Lancashire was hit by bitterly cold weather and a hailstorm - in mid-June! But the sun shone at Northampton in September when Ian Westwood made his debut, Trott scored the dreariest 38 not out in the history of cricket and champagne corks flew as Knight collected the championship trophy.

HIGH SPOTS
1. Michael Powell's century at Beckenham, a superb response to being consigned to the 2nd XI in the first half of the summer having been captain the year before.
2. After an hour's desperate ringing round, hearing a porter at a Crawley hotel utter the magic words: "Your laptop is in hotel bar. I keep it for you. You lucky man."
3. Ian Bell's glorious 121 in the championship against Kent at Edgbaston.

LOW SPOTS
1. Dewald Pretorious' quest for form and fitness.
2. Waking up on a Saturday morning in Crawley and realising my laptop had not come home with me the previous night.
3. Falling asleep at Bristol as Gloucestershire and Warwickshire, desperate not to lose (to avoid relegation and stay top respectively) throttled the life out of a championship match and fuelled the debate about the merits of two-division cricket.

2005
Inverarity intended to spend only two seasons at Edgbaston but was seduced by the championship triumph into staying for a third. Mistake. Few people expected Warwickshire to successfully defend their title and this time the majority was right.
The Bears had over-achieved in 2004. This time, the coach's interest waning, they finished fourth, though they improved in the shorter formats, going straight back up in the totesport League and reaching the C&G final.
Stratford hosted its second championship game - and it's last. Due to fine swing bowling from Heath Streak the match with Hampshire lasted just two days and a £30,000 loss was recorded on the week. It was a million to one against that ever happening again but the county was scared off outgrounds probably for good.
In August, Inverarity at last confirmed he would not return in 2006. Bears legend Andy Moles and ex-New Zealand batsman Mark Greatbatch, recently appointed to run the academy at Edgbaston, vied to replace him and a deeply flawed selection process handed Greatbatch the job. A multiple changing of the guard also saw Dennis Amiss resign as chief executive, to be replaced by Colin Povey, and Streak succeed Knight as captain.

HIGH SPOTS
1. Shane Warne dismissing Jim Troughton at Stratford with a delivery which appeared to turn both ways, swing, fizz, rear up and grub.
2. Coming under the wing of Radio Five Live broadcasting legend Kevin Howells and receiving invaluable career and life tips, ie. Always have a bag handy for litter.
3. The muffins at Trent Bridge.

LOW SPOTS
1. The rudeness of John Inverarity after I had laboriously spent half an hour finding out for him how his Australian football team had fared. They had lost.
2. Rain.
3. Being forcibly escorted from the the clubhouse at Colwyn Bay for using a mobile phone. About five other people had made calls in the previous ten minutes.

2006
Streak naively put the new regime straight under pressure with a pre-season claim that Warwickshire were aiming for four trophies. Unlikely. A fine man and cricketer, the Zimbabwean was a moderate, over-cautious captain while Greatbatch's appointment was an appalling error and the consequences of it were those to be expected from an appalling error.
The most toxic fallout was still a year away. In their first season under "Batch" the Bears finished fourth in the championship. This appeared impossible on July 21 after a humiliating defeat at Scarborough spawned a players' meeting triggered by the director of cricket's inflexible methods and crass man-management. With Neil Houghton (club chairman) and John Claughton (chairman of cricket) in full ostrich mode, nothing was done and the situation was allowed to fester. Spinner Paul Harris, plucked from the Lancashire League, powered an unlikely revival and three successive wins, including a remarkable last-ball triumph at The Rose Bowl, lifted the Bears away from relegation.
The revival papered over gaping cracks. Wagh joined Nottinghamshire. Knight retired to head for the commentary box. The other players, without such a luxurious option, wintered gloomily at the prospect of another season under a man whose insecurity, inexperience and intolerance left him wholly ill-qualified for his role.

HIGH SPOTS
1. Jimmy Anyon and Lee Daggett, good pals and two of the nice guys, bowling the Bears to narrow victory over Durham at Edgbaston.
2. Dealing with Nick Knight.
3. Ian Westwood and Mark Wagh opening the batting at Scarborough in thick sea mist with announcements from a nearby bowls club coming over the public address.

LOW SPOTS
1. Chatting to Nick Knight at the Parks and getting what I thought was an excellent thorough feature interview - on his past, his present, his future - in the bank. Next day the club announced he was retiring at the end of the season. He hadn't mentioned it!
2. Being wheelchaired in agony round to the Bears' dressing room at Blackpool past a succession of chortling, pointing schoolchildren.
3. Being informed by a rough-looking cove at Trent Bridge that "I'm gonna smash your head in" after I declined to give him money.

2007
It takes a big man to admit he is not up to a job. Streak is such a man and resigned the captaincy after the first championship match of 2007. Greatbatch is not and waited to be sacked, thereby pocketing sizeable compensation, at the end of an angry, bitter and, at times, excruciating season in which Warwickshire suffered double relegation. People who have been around Edgbaston a long time rate 2007 the club's unhappiest year.
Darren Maddy took on the captaincy and at first the paper stayed on those cracks. But then the whole edifice came down. A capitulation at Durham at the start of August sent the season into freefall.
So much at a county cricket club emanates from the chief coach and unhappiness infected the club top to bottom. It was acute in the dressing-room where good players floundered. The Bears cast around for a Harris-type saviour. Alfonso Thomas. Ant Botha. Nayan Doshi. Vaughn van Jaarsveld. There was to be no rescue. A desperate, hopeless season was summed up by Greatbatch's minder, fellow Kiwi Dave Hadfield, trying his hypnotism on players and staff who humoured him by sitting through his routine when actually not feeling sleepy at all.
The nightmare ended only with the departure of Greatbatch and, later, the resignation of Claughton though, strangely, not Houghton.

HIGH SPOTS
N/a.

LOW SPOTS
1. Dealing with Mark Greatbatch
2. The loutish cameo by Dave Hadfield trying to start an argument at the back of the supporters forum called to discuss the disastrous season.
3. John Claughton's appalling offering to the audience at that forum.

2008
After the Greatbatch gaffe, Warwickshire had to get the next appointment right. Fortunately, a popular candidate was at hand. Ashley Giles, recently retired from playing, became director of cricket and recruited Donald as bowling coach. With Brown, Keith Piper and Neil Abberley, the coaching staff brimmed with ex-Bears, just what was required by a club desperately needing to regain its confidence, composure and identity.
On the field. the championship Second Division provided a forgiving arena. After a slow start, the Bears steadily rose to the top where they finished. Trott, after a disastrous 2007, began the voyage of rediscovery which was to take him into England's team. Chris Woakes launched a career which will take him there. The Bears' one-day cricket remained erratic but Maddy stepped down as skipper at the end of the season with the the squad satisfactorily rebuilding.
But would the pavilion ever get rebuilt? For Edgbaston-based scribes, the years 2000-2009 brought three recurring questions. 2000-2005: "How's Ashley's hip?" 2006-2007: "When's 'Batch going?" and 2008-2009: "What's the latest on the pavilion?" As 2009 dawned, the Pavilion End 'Master Plan' was still in the thick of battle against financial and planning hurdles and residents' protests.

HIGH SPOTS
1. Dealing with Ashley Giles and Allan Donald.
2. The emergence of Chris Woakes: highly talented player, thoroughly decent chap.
3. The company of Warwickshire's supporters during the final game at Chelmsford (and associated evenings!) when at last the sun shone.

LOW SPOTS
1. Sitting in a hotel at Amersham during Warwickshire's game at Middlesex instead of being with Mary when her mother was seriously ill.
2. Rain, rain, more rain.
3. The Post & Mail ravaged by redundancies.

2009
Finally, in December 2009, the last obstacle to the Master Plan was removed. Construction of the new Pavilion End will begin early in 2010. The start of a new decade will truly herald a new era.
Warwickshire begin that decade in the championship First Division after a solid return under the captaincy of Ian Westwood. The Bears pursued a similar policy to 2004, above all insuring against defeat. And while their batsmen were nowhere near consistent enough to amass totals to emulate the feat of five years before, they did enough to achieve the number one objective and stay up. There were also signs of advances in one-day cricket with an undefeated 40-over campaign and another strong group stage in the Twenty20, albeit followed by yet another quarter-final exit.
Cricket at Edgbaston in 2010 will be strange. Half the ground will be a building site as Warwickshire CCC enters its 116th year as a first-class county. Without doubt an era of galloping changes has more changes ahead yet. Years 2000 to 2009 brought the Bears a sprinkling of trophies, much turbulence, plenty of rain and, just as in cricket globally, in some respects, total transformation. What will the next ten years bring? Who knows. May I just say what a privilege it was for me to cover the club for almost a tenth of its existence and offer to everyone out there - supporters, players, stewards, staff, journalists, coaches; far far too many people to mention - a huge thank you for your help, your kindness, your humour and your company. Especially in those damned rain breaks!

HIGH SPOTS
1. Neil Carter's Pro40 century at Canterbury.
2. The cider houses of Taunton and the company of Section 19.
3. The kindness of Gerhard Mostert plus numerous journalists and Bears supporters after an incident with a low chain fence in Scarborough.

LOW SPOTS
1. Sitting in Scarborough General Hospital at 1am on a Saturday with a broken arm.
2. Rain.
3. The vastly increased workload of covering the Bears for Post, Mail, Mercury and Cov Tel, plus blogging, finally taking its toll during the championship visit to New Road where, taking a moment in the sunshine outside the press box, I suddenly realised that there I was in one of the loveliest venues in cricket, a magnificent place, with sunshine and flowers and cake and cathedral and the timelessness of white-clad figures moving round a big lovely green field and I should be counting my lucky stars yet was too hard-pressed, headache-afflicted and simply knackered to enjoy it at all.

In July 1968, Warwickshire were due to play a championship match against Somerset at Bath but the lovely ground there was flooded so the game was switched to Taunton.

The wet weather did not relent and the match required two declarations to keep it alive. After the Bears were all out for 192, Somerset declared on 147 for 4. Warwickshire then declared on 159 for eight, setting the home side a target of 205 and an exciting finish evolved below leaden skies. Bears spinners Tom Cartwright and Lance Gibbs wheeled away for a combined 41-18-80-5 but Merv Kitchen and Bill Alley defied with skill and patience and Somerset hung on to finish on 141 for eight. Match drawn.

Greg Chappell batted at number three for Somerset but was twice dismissed cheaply - for 14 and 16 - by Bill Blenkiron.

Shame that in 2009 Somerset played just one day's first-team cricket at the elegant Bath venue.

Moreton-in-Marsh is a lovely little town close to the north Gloucestershire border. Wouldn't it be lovely to see the cricketers of Gloucestershire and Warwickshire play each other there again, as they did on May 4, 1975 in the dear old John Player League when Andy Stovold's unbeaten 97 lifted the home side to 217 for three (Rouse 8-0-56-0) before all the Bears batsmen contributed - Jameson 38, Amiss 24, Kanhai 33, MJK Smith 30 not out - while Kallicharran took the lead role with a sparkling unbeaten 77 to lift Warwickshire to a seven-wicket victory with 28 balls to spare despite the athletic fielding...

...of Jim Foat.

The residents' challenge to Warwickshire's 'Master Plan' for the Pavilion End of Edgbaston has this morning been rejected by a judge.

The final obstacle has been removed.

At last, it is all systems go.

The bulldozers can go in.