In this week’s Friday Five, grab a travel guide of Derby and follow an Aussie in denial through the latest county cricket news via Nottingham, Leicester and Durham, while carefully avoiding too much talk about Edgbaston. Who’s interested in test cricket anyway?
#RLODC The fifty over competition started last weekend, it continues this week, some teams have won games while others have lost. All matches are 100 overs long, unless the weather takes pity on spectators and forces the match down to a more reasonable length. Seriously though, Essex are topping group B and Surrey group A but, basically, we have another competition in which Yorkshire are doing quite well. If that isn’t enough to turn you off, I don’t know what is. Derbyshire aren’t doing too badly and were involved in the most interesting instalment of the competition to date against Gloucestershire. Note that my interest in this tournament is directly related to Derbyshire’s fortunes in it.
#OverseasPlayers South African spinner Imran Tahir apparently likes Britain a lot. So much so that he is even willing to play for Nottinghamshire in order to spend some more time here. The 36-year-old international will spend the rest of the season with the East Midlands side and is reputedly hoping to get a chance to visit Derby while he’s nearby. Former Pakistani spinner Abdur Rehman will not have his dreams of a weekend in Derby realised, however, as Somerset have released him with immediate effect. The 35 year old has had something of a disappointing season and the side will look into securing another overseas player for the remainder of the season.
#CountyCricket Leicestershire’s CEO Wasim Akram continues in his quest to push his side forward, announcing redevelopment plans for Grace Road. The Foxes have had plenty of on field troubles in the past couple of years and this has brought changes in club personnel a fresh way of thinking. A facelift for the ground fits in with this ethos perfectly. However fond the fans are of the Meet or how much we all enjoy the infamous Grace Road cheese sandwiches, there’s no denying the place could use a revamp. In Durham, batsman Graham Clark has been carried through the streets on the shoulders of local school children, as a reward for his 91* against Yorkshire in the Natwest Blast, and offered a contract to keep him at the club until 2016. Rumour has it that if he scores more than 50 against them at Scarborough next week, a statue will be erected.
#MoreCountyCricket The eight quarter-finalists of the Natwest Blast have now been set and the matches take place between August 12th and 15th. Sussex, Birmingham, Worcestershire and Kent took the home slots. Their opponents do not include Derbyshire and Birmingham are still going to win. We have had a break from the LVCC this week as the ECB attempts to interest us in fifty over cricket distraction free. Don’t worry, it’s back in a few days. To recap: Yorkshire are still winning and Lancashire still look as though they’ll get promoted. We’ll wake you up when it’s time.
#Ashes Something is happening in Birmingham: Steve Finn bowled, Dave Warner batted, Stuart Broad nearly cried when a fan heckled him but that’s about it. It’s nothing anyone is particularly interested in, but rest assured that the Association of Slightly Desperate Australians were hosting a communal rain dance on Vic square this morning.
That is all.
