Abdul Razzaq flies in

Under Manchester's glowering June sky, Abdul Razzaq arrived to play for Leicestershire at Old Trafford last night. He'd been in the country for less than a day and it showed. He wore a shirt with a large piece of white tape obscuring someone else's name, and when he went out to bat he had on his Pakistan team helmet. In his post-match interview, he acknowledged 'my colleague, Mr White', a man he'd evidently not spent a whole lot of time with before they met out in the middle.

That Razzaq belted one ball into a part of Old Trafford levelled by the builders, and the cameras tracked its progress through the mud and under a parked car, just added to the overall feeling of a game surrendering to its blur of fixtures and desperation for money.

Leicestershire endured their odd little civil war last winter, and they are one of the counties usually referred to when stories of those staring into the abyss are written. They are not alone. Rob Key said earlier in the season something along the lines of - and I'm paraphrasing here - 'you used to be able to get a good overseas for about 60k a year. Now they want that for the Twenty20'.

Hence Leicestershire's anxiety to get Razzaq from the airport and onto the pitch. And Razzaq is just one of the players carving a new kind of career as an international gun for hire. He has already played for Hampshire, Middlesex, Surrey and Worcestershire, and who can blame him? His game is ideal for T20, he gives value for money and he endures the chaos and uncertainty of playing for Pakistan. Soon his kind of peripatetic professional life will be the norm for men of his calibre.

Even the most determined of county-goers are hard-pressed to name who might be playing for them in the T20. It makes the game more difficult to market and it's a game that has to be marketed. To deserved hilarity, Surrey wanted to walk batsmen out like darts players, yet their urge for a gimmick is understandable. The Oval is a big place.

Razzaq was brilliant last night. Leicester needed 63 from four overs and he made it look easy. With Paul Nixon and Matthew Hoggard, men who understand what has been invested in Razzaq, looking on, at first twitchily and then with broadening smiles, it was superb theatre in a ground that was either half-full or half-empty, depending on how you look at it.

Days of Grace

A bomb went off at Grace Road yesterday, one of those comedy cartoon ones that has 'BOMB' written on the side in big white letters and a long fuse that slowly burns down while it gets passed between the characters, everyone wondering who'll be left holding it when it finally explodes. Matthew Hoggard, Tim Boon and chairman Neil Davidson turned out to be the ones covered in soot.

As with lots of wars these days, it wasn't entirely clear afterwards who had won. Hoggy, being Hoggy and one of England's stoutest yeomen, has all of Leicester on his side, including the players, staff and membership. But this is county cricket, and this is England, and so Neil Davidson has his job title and the minutiae of company procedure on his [The Skiver provides an excellent summary here*].

Ex-milkman Davidson then did what all chairmen under the cosh do - he immediately went on holiday. Poor old Hoggy, who must be wondering exactly what he has done to offend the Gods over the past couple of years, had to go and bowl at Mark Ramprakash. Ramps only got 179 not out. Under that famous stack of hair, Hoggy grimaced and ran in once more, uphill and into the wind.

* J-rod was presumably otherwise disposed appearing on the radio. I was driving home minding my own business when he turned up on Five Live, defending the indefensible Ricky Ponting. I almost crashed my car...