Get your hands off of our man!

Surrey, whose fingers were apparently not burned in signing Chris Lewis a couple of seasons ago, are going for another 40 something who hasn't played for ages. This time it is the Warwickshire legend Brian Lara (i believe he may have played for the West Indies too). It may be a ploy by BCL to increase his value because he has been rumoured of going to try IPL. I'd rather he came here though, i never saw him playing for the Bears (except on TV).

Birmingham Super Kings

English cricket is looking at city franchises again (yawn), and apparently the latest thinking would be to have a city based franchise EPL T20, another T20 with 18 counties, kill the P40 and then have conference county cricket. Why don't they just kill the domestic game off now and save us all a bit of time.

George Dobell thinks the game is heading for the abyss, lets hope not though!

One man and his dog

The start of the county cricket season and of course the stadium was empty, with just the proverbial one man and his dog shivering with misery in the stands... but wait what was this? Queuing to get in? A really decent crowd (which i expertly managed to miss out of most of the below shot)? Well of course its no surprise to me though it might be a surprise to the various well-paid journalists who spout out the usual cliched bollocks this time of the year. Maybe because i actually visit the ground and not rely on reusing tired out cliches and hobnobbing with England players in the hope that other people might think they are friends.

Some photos from the first session of play are on my Flickr account. The Sun was out but it didn't really shine on the Bears who struggled.

The season begins...

April 9th! Yes the county championship season begins very early this year, the earliest ever isn't it? I shall be going along to the ground later. I awoke to glorious sunshine yet a hint of frosty dew on the lawn outside so i suspect the toss today will be fairly important...

Video : Warwickshire set for earliest ever start to cricket season

From the Birmingham Post.

Team for the Yorkshire game

Ian Westwood (Captain)
Varun Chopra
Ian Bell
Jonathan Trott
Jim Troughton
Tim Ambrose (wk)
Rikki Clarke
Chris Woakes
Neil Carter
Ant Botha
Naqaash Tahir
Imran Tahir
Andrew Miller

The season starts in a couple of days, who knows what the 2011 season will be like but lets enjoy 2010 first!

New membership card received... countdown to the new season

My new membership card arrived at the weekend now i am waiting for the start of the county championship season on Friday when Yorkshire come down to Edgbaston for a good hiding (well we can hope). I shall be there, at the moment the weather forecast looks promising.