Trott gets incremental contract

Jonathan Trott has been awarded an incremental contract by the ECB as central and incremental contracts were renewed. Ian Bell retains his central contract while Tim Ambrose, Steve Harmison and Monty Panesar miss out entirely. As Graham Swann now has a central contract and Adil Rashid an incremental it may be a tough road back for Monty.

September cricket musings

Oddly enough September is one of my favourite cricket months. There is, of course, the sense of the season drawing to a close. The final battles for glory or defeat take place. The weather is usually better than it has been in the "Summer" too with clear blue skies! I also am able to see more cricket than i have been for the previous few months. For various reasons April, May and September are much easier for me to get to the games than the 3 Summer months.

The Pro40 has been a revelation this year, some of the best cricket i have seen on TV this year, and for sure the best i have seen live, has been in this format so i am glad that this format will continue in future. Is it just me or are P40 scores on average quite a bit higher than they have been in the past? Maybe it is the T20 effect.

In the county championship Warwickshire are edging their way to safety and might even end up quite high up in the table. The bore draws at Edgbaston will be (almost) worth it if the Bears stay up. Lets hope with a bit of strengthing in the batting and bowling departments the team can be more competitive next year. Durham seem light years away at present but you never know...

The England-Australia ODIs have been a bit poor, England just can't seem to get a settled one day side. When you see Alaistair Cook score back to back centuries in the P40 you wonder why the test opener isn't in the one-day team. I also wonder why Trott isn't, but at the moment i'm glad he is scoring runs for the Bears!

Next season the pavilion will be rubble and the new domestic structure will be in place. It will be an interesting season for sure.

The end of the (home) season

So that is it then for 2009 as far as home games are concerned at the "home of cricket" (Knight 2008). Warwickshire beat Derbyshire in an excellent Pro40 game. I went along determined to finally see a P40 game before i die. I also wanted to take some pictures of the old pavilion and the other members' facilities before the redevelopment begins.

I believe the bulldozing begins in November. Botha hit a 6 onto the pavilion roof, likely to the last time anyone ever does that. Bell (below) scored a great ton. Why isn't he playing for England in ODIs? Indeed why not Alaistair "Back to back 100s in the P40" Cook for that matter!

So thats it then. Next April half the ground will be a building site. I'll miss the old facilities which were old, inadequate and crumbling but had a charm even if they were hidden behind scaffolding.

I have to say though, Derbyshire were rubbish and what is it with that outfit? Bright yellow and light grey? I think that horrific colour clash must have sapped their strength! A group of their rowdy fans gave some good entertainment though before being silenced by the "Green Army". When they started singing "I am the one and only" at Chesney Hughes it was inspired.

Derbyshire's players are informed next year they will have a different strip

Full photo set.

Bears vs Pears

The "must-win" game at the bottom of division 1, in football they have 6 pointers so i guess this is a 28 pointer. Play was delayed but started after 11 and lasted for an hour when curiously the players came off it seems because they thought it was going to rain.

Some more pics.

My all-time England XI

Who would be in your all-time England XI, well my pick is below. As some of the comments on the Guardian page say you can only really judge from players you have actually seen play. And as i'm not that old my players are from the last few decades.

Atherton
Strauss *
Smith (RA)
Lamb
Thorpe
Botham
Russell +
Giles
Foster
Fraser
Malcolm

Other squad members : Hussain, Flintoff, Hoggard

The future is 40

After much oohing and ahhing and various other formats both traditional and weird thrown about the ECB has decided that the third format in county cricket will be... 40 over cricket! So the Pro40 is not meaningless after all, its the future. I am very happy about this personally as 40 over cricket is an excellent format that is much maligned by the usual suspects. They moan of course that the domestic structure should mirror the international, well we have had 50 over cricket for years but it does not seem to have made us world beaters.

Intriguingly next year's competition will include 21 teams, the three extra teams could be Ireland, Scotland and a Minor Counties side which is very welcome news.

Game of death

The game against Yorkshire starting at Scarborough is (to lapse into footie speak) MASSIVE. Surely the Bears have to win if they are going to stay up in division 1. IR Bell returns after his Ashes glory though Rankin is out injured. Calum MacLeod is back after getting his action sorted out. The squad:

• Westwood *
• Botha
• Bell
• Frost
• Troughton
• Ambrose +
• Clarke
• Carter
• Woakes
• Sreesanth
• Tahir
• MacLeod