May 2009 Archives

Scotland 30 for 1 (10 overs) Hamilton 14, Watson 0.

Watts is the man out, for 13. Trying to turn Rankin to mid-wicket he got a leading-edge to Bell at extra-cover.

Ten rather colourless overs, to be honest, as Carter and Rankin give little away.

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Good morning ladies and gentlemen.

It's sunny at Edgbaston but a stiff breeze could blow showers in during the day. Warwickshire have won the toss and will bowl.

The team: Westwood, Carter, Bell, Trott, Troughton, Frost, Clarke, Piolet, Barker, Patel, Rankin.

At ten o'clock this morning, Darren Maddy, participating in a gentle warm-up exercise at Edgbaston, with nobody else near him, felt an ominous 'pop' at the back of his knee.

The injury, sustained in the most innocuous fashion (a la Mark Wagh, when he was ruled out for a whole season, a few years ago) has been scanned this afternoon but it is almost certainly cruciate ligament damage which would rule him out for most, if not all of, the season.

A real sickener for Darren. Such bad luck.

And some hard luck too for Andy Miller who put in an impressive debut against Hampshire last week but finished the game sore and has torn a side muscle quite badly. He will be out for six weeks.

Lady Luck ain't the Bears' biggest supporter just now.

For some years the ECB has done its best to deter spectators from attending domestic one-day games by scheduling them all over the week, thereby making it as difficult as possible for people to keep track of when teams are playing. This year they came up with another twist by also making it unclear what time of day group matches in the Friends Provident Trophy would start.

For FPT group games, many pre-season publications were forced to put "10.45am or 12noon". Very helpful to spectators.

For the record, Warwickshire's game against Scotland on Sunday will start at noon. Then their game at Canterbury a week on Sunday will start at 10.45am, which is a bit tough on the Bears who won't get to Canterbury until late the previous night if their championship match with Yorkshire goes all the way.

Then Middlesex at Edgbaston on May 12 will be a noon start, the games in Taunton and Edinburgh on May 14 and 16 will be 10.45am and the one at Lord's on May 18 will be noon.

All the Bears' home group games start at noon - except for the last one against Kent on May 20 which will be 10.45am because every game that day must start at 10.45am in case Sky want to televise it.

The involvement of the broadcaster is the reason for this mess. The incentive for counties to start games at 10.45am is to lure Sky which insist their games start then.

Selling out to Sky was a black, black day for English cricket.