June 2008 Archives

Gloucestershire 10 for 1 (5 overs). Porterfield 8, Marshall 0.

Woakes, taking up from where he left off in the championship at Cardiff three weeks ago, is bang on the button straight away and strikes with his 11th ball which Kadeer Ali edges to second slip for Bell to take a comfortable catch.

The scoreboard is working immaculately so far, although a strange 'D' has appeared just above and to the left of the wickets column. None of us in the press-box can work out what that's all about.

Good morning ladies and gentlemen. It is a bright, sunny, breezy day at Edgbaston as the championship - and serenity - returns.

Martin makes his Bears first-class debut. Bell plays. Powell to open with Poonia. Lewis returns after injury for Gloucestershire to make up a decent seam attack with Kirby and loanees Harris and Wigley.

Warwickshire team: Poonia, Powell, Bell, Trott, Troughton, Frost, Botha, Salisbury, Carter, Woakes, Martin.

Gloucestershire have won the toss and will bat.

Ian Bell will play for Warwickshire in the championship match against Gloucestershire starting at Edgbaston on Sunday. Bell asked Peter Moores if he could play and the England coach said yes.

Pretty handy for the Bears, bearing in mind both openers Maddy and Westwood are injured.

Jimmy Anyon will not play, however, due to an ankle injury. Chris Martin will come in for his champo debut and let's hope his championship career with the Bears lasts a bit longer than that of their previous foray into the Kiwi player market, D.Vettori - one game, no wickets.

TEN SUGGESTIONS FOR WHAT WARWICKSHIRE MIGHT DO WITH THE SCOREBOARD AT THE PAVILION END.

1. Have it towed away for scrap. Must be worth at least a fiver.

2. Send it to a cricket museum. Visitors will marvel at how spectatators used to cope with such a hopeless, faltering piece of equipement.

3. Turn it round and hammer nails into the back from which numbers could be hung, thereby relating the score in old-fashioned but reliable style.

4. Make it a designated target for seagulls and other feathered creatures, thereby encouraging them to reduce the trail of devastation they habitually leave elsewhere, notably on silver Ford Fiestas.

5. Redevelop it as a luxury, character residence and rent it out to a bespectacled loss-adjuster called Norman.

6. Drape it in curtains and tassles and festoon it with hanging baskets so, like other essentially useless items, it at least has decorative value.

7. Send it to Zimbabwe so Robert Mugabe can use it as his election scoreboard.

8. Pack it up lock, stock and barrel, transport it to New Zealand and instal it in Mark Greatbatch's garden as a token of appreciation for all his good work for the club.

9. Recycle it into 26,736,812 bat handles.

10. Leave it just as it is and allow it to continue to regularly make the club a laughing stock.

Ant Botha really has bowled brilliantly in this season's Twenty20, his figures after tonight's game standing at a remarkable 25-0-132-12. Jon Trott has batted with similar quality although you would have to go a long way to find a finer sight in cricket than Jim Troughton when he is flowing. Cricket journalism is not all glamour y'know. One of the reporters turned up to tonight's match and promptly informed us all about his ongoing earwax problems (rather loudly, because he was a bit mutton due to his ongoing earwax problems), a case of 'too much information' if ever there was one. Crowds around the country have been down a bit in some cases this Twenty20 but Warwickshire's supporters seem to be sticking with it with attendances holding up well at Edgbaston. Is there a case for a longer Twenty20 programme? I have my doubts. I mean, chocolate mousse is nice but you only want so much of it don't you? Richard Johnson is in plaster for three weeks after aggravating his cracked finger so the Bears are desperately hoping that Tony Frost doesn't get crocked. I wish somebody would repeat 'The Waltons' on the goggle-box again. Hasn't been on since I lived in Lincoln which is a gorgeous city full of gorgeous, if slightly mad, people. Not sure about the dunk-tank. It's a bit of a one-trick pony. "Grass" by Carl Sandburg is a great poem.

Ian Westwood suffered a fracture-dislocation of the little finger of his left hand trying to take that catch yesterday and will undergo surgery later this week. He will be out for six weeks, joining first-team captain Darren Maddy, who has a broken thumb, on the sidelines.

It's desperately bad luck for Westwood who, for the second time in successive seasons, hits top form with the bat then gets crocked. Last year he was producing his best batting for the Bears when he was collared in the ribs by a thunderous pull from an Alex Loudon long-hop at Hove.

So for tomorrow's game against Somerset and the rest of the fixtures until Maddy is fit, Warwickshire turn to their third skipper of the season.

Bit of a surprise. Ant Botha.

Just watched "The Matrix". Now I do have trouble with plots but this was the first time I've got through an entire film, from first scene to last, and never had a bleedin' clue what was going on.

A colleague of mine, meanwhile, reports that he took his son to see Northamptonshire v Worcestershire in the Twenty20 last week and his boy went up to Monty Panesar and asked for his autograph. The little 'un was rebuffed. Panesar reacted with similar disdain to several boys when Warwickshire visited Northampton in the FPL earlier this season. Just who does he think he is?

Fair play to Warwickshire. As I departed Campbell Park last Thursday, Ashley Giles was doing the honours for a sizeable knot of autograph-hunters and the Bears' players are very good in that way.

Personally, I'd revoke Panesar's lucrative central contract (Don't suppose he had any problems with signing that!).

"All these things that I have done" by The Killers has just been played very loudly, it's magnificence echoing around the elegant, tree-lined bowl that is Campbell Park.

Twenty20 has just got better!

Waiting for last Saturday's Twenty20 game at Somerset to start I popped into the museum at Taunton cricket ground. It is superb.
All sorts of exhibits, many pertaining to Somerset cricket, but also plenty of wider interest. Scorecards, bats, gloves, photographs etc., but also quirky items. Like the shoes worn by the horse which towed the roller up and down the Taunton square in the middle of the last century!
The museum is clearly and thoughtfully laid out and a visit to it will fascinate any cricket-lover.

When I was there, an hour before the start of the match, the total of people in the museum was three: Myself and the lady and gentleman manning the door. None of the 4,000 spectators present, including the 50 dressed as Noddy, paid a visit.

Now I have no problem at all with that - a museum isn't everybody's cup of tea, after all, and most of the 4,000 were there for a spot of biff-bang and a raft of cider. But I was interested to see, during the match, several card-schools, their members quite oblivious to the cricket, underway in the bar and also quite a few seats which remained empty all afternoon and plenty more which, despite a close finish, emptied well before the end.

Before the ECB makes Twenty20 the centrepiece of the domestic game, they had better be jolly certain the format is not going to date very quickly. I'm not so sure. It has its place, an important place, in county cricket, of course - but as a lucrative sideshow. Sideshows you can cope without if they fail.

"Please make your unhurried and safe way from the stadium," the public announcer has just boomed.

Almost everybody did some time ago.

The teams take one point apiece.

Ah well, let's go and hit that M50 one more time...