County cricket 2017

[Etienne]

Fuck's fucking sake.

[Guy Profumo]

Bah!

[Guy Profumo]

wtf?

http://m.bbc.co.uk/sport/cricket/40522155

[SouthdownRebel]

Notts' Luke Fletcher has just taken a drive straight on the head in his follow-through during a T20 match I'm watching on Sky. Absolutely sickening. He was able to walk off but you have to worry about the effects of a blow like that. His teammates were visibly shocked by it and have now left the field, I suspect they won't be coming back out.

[SouthdownRebel]

Apparently they're going to try and continued - hopefully that means Fletcher is ok.

[longeared]

Went to Yorkshire Vikings v Birmingham Bears (absolute state of that) in the T20 Blast last night. Yorkshire won fairly comfortably thanks to David Willey scoring 70 before being run out off a free hit.

First T20 match I've been to since 2009 thanks to a freebie. Did note the demographic of the decent sized crowd, it's a bit different to what you get in the Championship. Plenty of kids, lots of young people, different male / female ratio. There's your challenge ECB, get these people to discover the delights of blocking and dibbly dobbly medium pacers on a grey afternoon against Hampshire.

[Kevin S]

Can hear the seagulls at Scarborough on Radio Leeds' commentary of Yorks v Essex.

The home team are about to reach the Essex first innings total on their second innings, but with only two wickets left it's unlikely they'll set Essex a tough chase.

[Kevin S]

Spotted on the Graun's County Championship updates page:

https://twitter.com/CountyChamp/status/894568277523005441

[Kevin S]

Alex Davies seems to be overshadowing Hameed for Lancashire with a 97 off 92; though Hameed is still in on 24*.

[longeared]

On TMS today Sir Geoffrey has repeatedly talked about England needing a batsman who can bat for two hours and score thirty not. Hameed's unbeaten 24 has come in 138 minutes.

[Kevin S]

Yes, a flashy strike rate is taken care of elsewhere in the England team. Someone who can stick around is what we need.

[ursus arctos]

Amir takes 10 for 72 against Yorkshire

[pebblethefish]

Hales on 211* off 208 at the moment, although oddly enough he's not opening. Maybe he's after a cll-up at number 5 for England?

[Guy Profumo]

So.

Day out in Whitby tomorrow then.

BR Yorkshire.

[Kevin S]

Amir takes 10 for 72 against Yorkshire

Makes the back pages in Pakistan. (Edit - that's about the first day's takings)

Clip of the haul here.

[Levin]

I know this isn't really an issue and should rather put it in the minor irritations thread in world; but I happen to have the first week of September off and thought, oh I'll see if there is any cricket on. I was delighted to see that there is a full county schedule for that week.

And then saw that both Surrey and Middlesex are away. Oh well I thought, I guess I could go down to Sussex. Away. Across to Kent? Away. I guess I could go all the way out to Essex. Away. Leaving just Hampshire and I'm buggered if I'm going to spend 3 hours getting to a cricket match.

I know this is extremely churlish of me, and oh so London-y, just expecting the thing I want to do or see will be there but I'm rather annoyed at this.

[Ray de Galles]

My minor annoyance is that should Glamorgan win their home T20 quarter-final the finals day clashes with a Wales football home World Cup qualifier.

[longeared]

If Yorkshire had earned a home quarter final in the T20 it would have had to have been played away as Headingley is in use this week for the Test and Sky can't do a live broadcast from Scarborough. As it is we missed out on qualification entirely and consequently have no fixtures between August 17th and September 5th.

[pebblethefish]

Leaving just Hampshire and I'm buggered if I'm going to spend 3 hours getting to a cricket match.

In fairness, it takes about that long to get there from central Southampton if you're using public transport

[SouthdownRebel]

I know this isn't really an issue and should rather put it in the minor irritations thread in world; but I happen to have the first week of September off and thought, oh I'll see if there is any cricket on. I was delighted to see that there is a full county schedule for that week.

And then saw that both Surrey and Middlesex are away. Oh well I thought, I guess I could go down to Sussex. Away. Across to Kent? Away. I guess I could go all the way out to Essex. Away. Leaving just Hampshire and I'm buggered if I'm going to spend 3 hours getting to a cricket match.

I know this is extremely churlish of me, and oh so London-y, just expecting the thing I want to do or see will be there but I'm rather annoyed at this.

Is Northampton within reach? It's not churlish, it happens regularly from what I can tell and it's pretty poor planning on the ECB's part - which, frankly, comes as no surprise.

[Etienne]

I'm actually in Birmingham on Finals Day, in the evening. Supposed to go to the theatre. Wonder if I could bunk off to Edgbaston without my wife noticing?

[Etienne]

That's two pretty one sided quarter finals so far.

[Levin]

SDR: I'm going to go to Northants for day 2. It's a bit further than I would have liked but nostalgia has got to me as I've not been to the county ground since the NatWest quarter final in 89. Thank you for the suggestion.

Looking at wikipedia we went to every warwickshire game of that campaign.

[SouthdownRebel]

Levin, don't mention it - hope you enjoy the day.

Etienne, surely you can convince Mrs Etienne that Edgbaston offers plenty of theatre?

[longeared]

Who could possibly resist seeing this, for a start?