Runs, wickets, matchfixing, coppers... what's not to like?

Conventional wisdom says the county championship is boring. Conventional wisdom is wrong. It's only been back for two days, and there's already been a double hundred, a nine wicket bag, and, in tune with ineffable beauty of green England in spring, Mark Ramprakash not out overnight at the Oval. 

Oh, and there's been a matchfixing scandal too. Or there might have been, involving Essex. During the years of three-day Championship games, match-fixing went on every day, and no-one took any notice. Captains would get together, rubbish would be bowled, declarations would be agreed by both sides. No-one minded, because in three day games, it was the only way you could usually get a result. Those seem like distant and innocent times now. 

Essex, or a couple of Essex players, have allegedly bowled badly in a Pro-40 game. Inspector knacker, in the guise of the Essex constabulary, is on the case. Given the way Essex have played in recent years, they'll have a lot of evidence to sift through, distinguishing deliberate rubbish from the normal dreck.

Although the fuzz weren't naming names, most of the press were quick to report that one of the players was Danish Kaneria. The Times, though, was remarkably coy in this report. They just tacked on a seemingly unrelated paragraph at the end of the story... only as a hint, mind. Worried about getting sued, boys?

Even this wasn't the most amazing news of the season though. That came down at the Oval, where Surrey are under the leadership of 22-year-old Rory Hamilton-Brown. He's one of several big signings at the once-great, still-rich Brown Caps. Another is Chris Tremlett, from Hampshire. Remember him? Yup, so do Hampshire, that's why they let him go. Tremmers is absent from the first game against Derbyshire, being 'rested' in an 'effort to manage his workload'. Hamilton-Brown must have enjoyed reflecting on that as Chris Rogers reached his 200. Only six months to go, Rory...

Update: We can now officially cut the ribbon on the season. Ramps has gone past 100. Just the 18 boundaries in that. Some things are eternal.

Australia not taking T20 seriously

Andrew MacDonald - contract. David Warner - no contract.

They'll be the only country who'd really rather win the 50 over World Cup soon.

NB: There's a case to be made for running international T20 squads a bit like an IPL franchise, as a separate entity, separately developed. Imagine what Australia might be like with SK Warne as captain/coach.

Wright on

Frank Keating, now apparently consigned by the Guardian to affably brilliant down- memory-lane pieces, produced a classic of the type this week, a lovely meandering thing about playwrights in love with the game. 

He mentions Beckett, of course, who managed to cram in a few first class games before knocking off Waiting For Godot and a Nobel prize, Pinter, naturally, and Peter Gibbs, a former opening bat for Derbyshire who put down his bat and picked up his pen after playing a perfect force through midwicket off the back foot from Lance Gibbs, admitting that 'the moment taunted, tormented me. I knew I'd probably never capture such a supreme sensation again, never again play a shot such as that - while someone like Barry Richards was strolling out and doing it without a thought every day of the week'.

Ah, the great and legendary Bad Baz. Of course he was. The clue is probably in the 'without thinking about it', but then Barry couldn't write about it like Peter did. Keating concludes with Dennis Potter's claim that his great grandfather twice bowled WG for a duck at the Coleford fete. This is another boast common amongst writers - Conan-Doyle always said he'd dismissed the Leviathan, too.

There are a couple of books I've been meaning to blog on as well, because they've been a pleasure. The first is Jarrod 'J-Rod' Kimber's When Freddie Became Jesus. It hardly needs saying that blogging and writing at length are different things, but CWB fans can go happily with him [actually they already have, probably - this review, such as it is, is on the late side]. The best thing is the sharpness of his observation, for example: 'opening batsmen don't get a nightwatchman, so why should anyone else in the order. [Stuart] Broad is way worse. He isn't even a batsman; at best he's a fast-bowling all-rounder. They are supposed to be tough, not afraid of taking their team to stumps. It's more proof that Broad thinks like a batsman'. That is better than anything that came from some of the comfy old lags in the commentary box.

The other is Clem Seecharan's From Ranji To Rohan. Clem is a professor of Caribbean History from Guyana, and this is the game as social history; it's about the meaning of cricket for national identity. You just won't get a view like this anywhere else. I kind of felt brainier just reading it [that soon faded]. 

Alec and Fred

Talking to my dad yesterday whilst savouring the enduring mastery and mystery of Warne - all the more bittersweet for not knowing how many more times we'll see it - he mentioned Alec Bedser.

My dad said he met him once, when he had a day at Lord's in a freebie box. He was walking down the corridor, some distance from the exit, and noticed Bedser ahead of him. At the door, Bedser stopped, held it open, raised his hat and spent a few minutes talking about the cricket before parting with a cheery 'good morning'.

That same day, he saw that other great quick man, Frederick Sewards Trueman, in the next box along. He asked him for an autograph to give to me. Trueman looked him up and down. 'Not bloody now...' he said.

Somehow, we agreed, the story makes you like both of them more...

NB: Warne finished freaking out Deccan just as the Tiger Woods presser started on Sky Sports News. It struck me that Woods possesses that same quality Warne does: when push comes to shove, they know they're going to win, you know that they know they're going to win, and they know that you know that they know they're going to win. As Warnie's proven many times, the odd sex-text scandal isn't enough to dispell it...

Backyard T20 with Steve Waugh

A terrific interview with Steve Waugh at Cricinfo today, in which the great man reveals he's created a version of T20 to play in the back yard with his son Austin, 10.

'The way we play is, I bowl 20 balls to him. He gets as many runs as he can. He tallies his score up and then I get my 20 balls... It's full on, there's no charity for him...'

Nope, there isn't... In a recent match exclusively seen by the Batsman, young Austin went first to the immaculate backyard pitch in the Sydney suburbs. As he walked out to face his opening delivery, the familiar voice of Australia's most implacable and flinty captain was heard: 'Here he comes boys', it went. 'He's got the big name but has he got the game...?'

Austin did well to post a score of 25, and waited patiently between innings as his father delayed his entrance as he was preparing to 'bat for the Baggy Green' and also because he 'wanted the light to be like that evening at the SCG'.

Eventually he came out, waving a red rag to check the wind, and made steady progress until he twanged a calf taking a quick single while Austin tried to find the ball in a flower bed. Austin offered to 'call the game a draw if you like, dad', whereupon Waugh fixed him with a stare and asked his son 'if he wanted to go inside so that they could get someone tough out here...'

Ultimately Waugh's wife, and Austin's mother, Lynette was summoned from the kitchen to act as a runner, her protestations that the dinner was almost ready dismissed with a curt 'just get your head down and leave it to Tugga'. 

Shortly afterwards Austin spilled a caught and bowled chance, and appeared tearful as his father grunted, 'you just dropped the World Cup, son' out of the side of his mouth.

Australia's former captain approached Austin's total rapidly, but waited until the penultimate ball to cover drive the winning runs, holding the pose for a second before walking off with bat raised.

Lynette then attempted to serve dinner, but was told firmly that the meal wouldn't be happening 'until Pigeon arrived to sing the team song'.

Austin, 10, got to bed around 12pm, but was kept awake by several raucous renditions of 'Beneath The Southern Cross' emanating from the kitchen. Before falling asleep he said that he 'prefers it when Uncle Mark comes round because he just scores a quick 70-odd, knocks me up an easy catch and then goes and sits inside to watch the racing'. 

King of sprain

After the summer of Flintoff's knee, England has entered the spring of Rooney's ankle. For those living in saner countries, Wayne Rooney is our Fred equivalent in the prole game of footer. The other day he fell over with no-one near him, and caused a national palpitation when it appeared the injury might be serious enough to keep him out of the World Cup.

Luckily for those looking forward to England's unconvincing progress to the quarter-finals before elimination on penalties to either Portugal or Germany, he'd only sprained it. He'll be out for three weeks.

The sprained ankle is one of those injuries that has remained impervious to the progress of medical science. In 1867, the Sporting Life reported: 'From May 10 until June, Mr WG Grace was laid up through a sprained ankle'.

See, it doesn't matter whether you're WG or Wayne Rooney, whether it's 1867 or 2010. Sprained ankle = three weeks out. 

NB: Hopefully Wazza will have more luck than the good Doctor had in '67. He'd been back for 10 days when he caught scarlet fever, which laid him low for a month, and then he split his finger fielding, which kept him out for the rest of the season. 

Pressure and time

Just as the sea will eventually erode the cliffs and a pebble on the ocean floor will one day make the beach, 'like', as that TV show has it, 'sands through the hour-glass', there is to be a change in the Australian batting order.

Notwithstanding the date of the announcement, Ricky Ponting has apparently conceded that Michael Clarke has been in the team long enough now to bat number four. Clarke turns 29 tomorrow, but he still the Pup to Ricky, 35, Simon Katich, 34, Mike Hussey, 34, and Marcus North, 30.

Ponting appears to be suggesting a straight swap with Hussey, although it's probably time for Punter to move too.

Australia now have a couple of Tests in England against Pakistan before the Ashes, so their batting line-up, if not order, is probably set. What's striking is its age. Of the top seven, only Clarke and Watson will be under 30, and Clarke not by much. With Haddin, 33, as keeper batsman, come november, they'll have an average age of 32 and a half.

England, should they go with the current side, will have Strauss, Collingwood and Pietersen over 30, and an average age of 29 years and eight months.

Age doesn't have to mean that much, but there's a stasis here. You have to wonder what a Hughes or a Smith would do for Australia, or equally Morgan for England.