This week’s Friday Five has a weather report or two, blokes in funny costumes, a sulky verdict on the Ashes and Birmingham beer in Derby. Get ready folks, because Freddie the Falcon is warming up for Saturday. Rest in peace, Adam Lyth.
#RLODC Take heed everyone – it’s almost over. This week, in a bright moment for ECB scheduling, we were forced to sit through the quarter-finals of the One-Day Cup. I suspect it was done deliberately because the schedulers knew no one would bother watching if we weren’t on the build up to the best thing to come out of domestic limited overs cricket: Finals Day! The RLODC is almost done, which is great news. What isn’t great news is that Yorkshire are still in it and Nottinghamshire actually look like potential winners for a change. If the final is between these two, I’ll be supporting the Outlaws harder than ever despite the pain it’ll cause me. Also still in the mix are Surrey and Gloucestershire.
#T20Blast It has tears, laughter, camaraderie, drama, David Lloyd and just a little bit of cheating. I’m obviously talking about the annual Mascot Derby. What more could you want out of life than a bunch of blokes in costumes trying not to injure one another while crawling through tunnels and jumping over sticks? At some point during the day, there will also be some T20 cricket. The good news is that Yorkshire are not there. The bad news is that we already know who’s going to win. Congratulations to the Birmingham Bears.
#LVCC Here’s something you learn fast when you move from Australia to Britain: you can never rely on summer being summery. It’s August and it won’t stop raining. Last week, I was in Riga and it was hot and sunny every day. I was in the Baltics and the weather was better than it was here, for heaven’s sakes! Unsurprisingly, it was quite a frustrating week of four-day cricket. I’m not going round the counties to see if there were results; all you need to know is that Derbyshire had to settle for a draw despite outplaying Kent. I am considering a lawsuit.
#MovingOn I am aware that some of these things may have happened last week, but remember that I was in the Baltics. I was somewhere near Russia, where they wear those big furry hats, enjoying the sunshine that seems to have completely passed Britain by. With that aside, we have some moves around the counties. As rumoured a couple of weeks back, David Willey has indeed moved to Yorkshire from Northants. That’s his international career set up, then. Mark Footitt has rejected moves by Derbyshire to sign him to a new contract when his current one ends after the 2016 season. If he also moves to Yorkshire, the voodoo doll might have to come out.
One man who won’t be moving to Yorkshire, I assume, is David Wainwright who moved from the White Rose county to Derbyshire in 2012. He and the Falcons have parted ways by mutual agreement. I haven’t heard any rumours regarding what’s behind the move, but I am thinking of starting one regarding Graeme Welch and the enforcement of West Midlands beer in the dressing room. I suspect it’s long been a problem.
#Ashes Yes yes yes, England won. Let’s not kid ourselves, though, because England ballsed up that final test and, frankly, were only slightly less rubbish than Australia. Needless to say, the nasty pasty in me is pleased that the England side still has finished the season with a few questions of their own. One question that immediately springs to mind is “at what point do we tell Adam he is just not good enough?”