Yorkshire Rout Hampshire The Tykes coasted to an innings and 27 run victory over Hampshire, you really couldn't ask for a better start to the county season, and with Morkel and injured captain Gough still to come in to the team we seem to have the welcome problem of having too many good players to choose from.

Hoggy Hammers Hampshire Tyke fast bowler Matthew Hoggard made a steady 19 runs as Yorkshire fell just two runs short of making 400, but then ripped through Hampshire's top order taking all five wickets to fall. I think he might be a bit annoyed at being dropped from the England squad, but as long as he performs like this for GOC, who cares ? Yorkshire's top order had looked a bit dodgy, England Captain Michael Vaughaun struggled yet again, McGrath and Sayers contributed little but a fine century from young Andrew Gale set the tone for a decent total. Yorkshire CCC

Indian Premier League Off To Awesome Start Brendan McCullum has just smashed 158 off 73 balls, in the last over he scored 20 runs with three sixes including a six off the final ball. Jacques Kallis' 4 overs went for 48. Well, that will keep the sponsors happy.

Indian Premier League Indian Premier League site

1st Day Of The New Season And didn't Lancashire look crap ? Apart from some tight bowling by perennial injury worry Flintoff their bowlers were fairly easy pickings as Mark "Why can't he do that for England ?" Ramprakash and Mark "Why can't he do that for England ?" Butcher both ran up easy tons in the first innings. Over the border, Yorkshire performed fairly well although Michael "Why do England Captains always bat like that ?" Vaughaun managed a duck when facing the might of the combined Leeds/Bradford Univercities team. Still, 500 allout isn't a bad effort. Kruis is looking on good form with the ball. Tomorrow of course the IPL kicks off, some of the franchise teams in the Indian Premier League were sold for almost $120million. The amount of money washing around in Indian cricket is staggering, as is Sachin Tendulkar's wage packet which is reputed to be in the region of $20million, Premiership footballers might feel poor by comparison. Whether or not you think that the IPL is damamging cricket in other countries, and possibly doing irreperable damage to the one day as well, the line of players that has been assembled by the super rich league is truly mouthwatering. Mark Boucher (BRC) Shivnarine Chanderpaul (BRC) M S Dhoni (CSK) Rahul Dravid (BRC) Adam Gilchrist (DC) Matt Hayden (CSK) Jacques Kallis (BRC) Brett Lee (K11P) Shaoib Malik (DDD) Mattiah Murilitheran (CSK) Ricky Ponting (KKR) Kumar Sangakarra (K11P) Virender Sehwag (DD) Ishant Sharma (KKR) Harbajan Singh (MI) Yuvraj Singh (K11P) Grahem Smith (RR) Andrew Symonds (DC) Sachin Tendulkar (MI) Daniel Vettori (DDD) Shane Warne (RR) It's like a whose who of the current best, and perhaps ever so slightly just past their best, or world cricket. There are no English players of course because our season has just begun, apart from Dimitri Mascerenas who hasn't been awarded a central contract from the ECB and thus isn't putting his future England career (if he has one) at risk. Over in the UK, won't be able to watch the IPL unless you are willing to fork out another £10 a month, on top of your Sky subscription, to the Setenta Sports channel. The line up look so good though, I could almost be tempted.

Power Of Three The last three England hat tricks were all bowled by Yorkshire (or ex Yorkshire) bowlers, Gough, Hoggard and Sidebottom. There must be something in the water, or in the ale they put the water in.

A Win At Last ! Well done the England team ontheir series win (eventually) over New Zealand, who else had a few moments of panic at the end of the last tests though as teenager Southee began to flay our bowlers ? Thankfully Sidebottom stepped in to finish it off.

Why Is Sidebottom Batting ? Because we're 33-6 already, that's really crap, I'm turning the tv off again.

Flintoff Feeling High "Andrew Flintoff is to see a renowned joint specialist in Amsterdam" (From R5 via Private Eye.) Well at least he will be in good company...

Another Season Ends Cricket that is, this is the Ilkley CC end of season bash. See if can can guess the theme and the characters before the last photo ?

Yorkshire v Worcestershire Yorkshire won by an innings and 260 runs. A sorry looking Worcs were hammered by an increasingly powerful looking Yorkshire side last week. Centuries came from Sayers and Rudolph, Craig White fell 3 short of his, and then in a rain affected match the bowlers ran rampant, Hoggard 5 and Rashid 5, Bresnan 4, gillespie 3, Worcs dissolved under the quicks in the 1st innings and then to a mix of speed and spin in the 2nd and were bowled out for 129 and 132. Yorkshire go back to the top of the County table, bring on Surrey. So Michael Vaughan is out of the 1st test, and Freddy has a dodgy ankle, all as normal in the England camp then.

Rough Boys From Hampshire They've broken Michael Vaughan, he really is the unluckiest bloke in the world. Hampshire held on for a draw against the Tykes. Younis Khan had a good match, a ton and a double ton plus 4-52 in Hants 2nd innings. Gough seems to have become quite the innovative captain, he isn't frightened of trying things out and he appears to be getting the team to play 'total cricket', the only men not to bowl a ball during the match were opening bat Joe Sayers and wicketkeeper Gerard Brophy (another South African). On this drawn match Yorkshire slip to second in the table behind Warwickshire.

Another Shameful Day For Cricket It set off (after rain delays) so well, Adam Gilchrist on scintillating, world cup winning form, smashing Sri Lanka's attack to all parts of the field, but then it descended into farce and shambles. Bowing down to it's TV masters, the ICC forced the Wold Cup to be cut down to 38 overs so it could be played in a single day. There were further delays, the dreaded Duckworth Lewis system was brought into play. Sri Lanka left the field needing 8+ runs an over, and resumed play needing 10+ runs per over, how bloody stupid is this in our cup final. For football fans, this is like Chelsea scoring once in the first half over Man U, then Man U being told the have to score three times in the second half to win, I know, over simplified, but who can actually describe the DL Method ? Sri Lanka were offered the light, took it, and were then told that they had forfeited the match for taking the light, a stage was brought onto the pitch, the umpires tried in vain to have it removed, the pitch markers were taken up and then laid back out again. Shambles, disgrace, embarrassment, a farcical tournament comes to a farcical end. The organisers were booed as they took to the stage for the presentation, and rightly so. The organisation of this World Cup has been awful, heads really should roll, but there are piles of money to be made in world cricket at the moment, so the fat cats at the top of the game will probably stay just where they are (which incidentally is Dubai, that well known cricketing nation). So 47 days of cricket has ended, a pointlessly long tournament with a lot of pointless games. England, India, Pakistan and South Africa were all well below par, Bangladesh and Ireland excelled, but their excellence sadly made the Super 8 stage into a progression for the top four. Australia have been superb all the way through, dominating, relentless, playing inspired and inspiring cricket, they were worthy winners, it's just a shame that the tournament will be remembered for almost everything except their cricket. RIP Bob Woolmer.

Durham Demolished Joe 'Boycott' Sayers ground out 149no in patient and matchwinning style, then Hoggy went on the rampage against the Durham top order taking four of their top five in a half hour burst ysterday morning. Yorkshire were left with a total of 30 to reach in their second innings, Craig White fell (and will probably get replaced by the form seeking Vaughan who returns to the Tykes for two county matches) but completed their demolition of Durham in two and a half days. Yorkshire top the Div 1 table by 10 points. Let us hope that today's World Cup Final is worth watching, after both NZ and SA were pretty poor in the semi's, surely Oz and Sri Lanka can produce a game worth watching for the dozens of people that have bought tickets for the final. Will the final be a sell out ? Neither of the semi's were even close, what shoddy organisation.

90 All Out So not only did Yorkshire get off to a flyer last week by winning both of their games, but Lancashire did their very best to keep all of us Tykes happy but getting their arses kicked for a pathetic 90 all out on Sunday. We would particularly like to thank Mal Loye, Karl Brown (age 8 and a half see here), Steve Croft, Luke Sutton, Kyle Hogg, Simon Marshall and Oliver Newby, who between them managed to score a grand total of 4 runs, well done lads, you were crap.

Yet Another Dismal World Cup As Fletcher quits and Vaughan considers his one day career, those in the know in my part of the world are asking why wasn't Tyke spinner Adil Rashid included in our World Cup squad. After all, Fletcher seems to have used virtually every English cricketer currently playing the game, before settling on a team composed of the aging (Nixon - although he did fairly well), the injured (Anderson, Vaughan) and the out of form (all the rest of the team, except Pieterson and Panesar). Young Adil, a good Bradford born and bred Yorkshireman, launched himself upon an unsuspecting Surrey on the first two days of the county championship. His excellent batting on the opening day, 86 runs batting at number 7, was rather overshadowed by Rudolph, Gillespie (isn't he supposed to be a bowler ?) and Bresnan all getting tons, but on the second day, with Surrey plugging on and racking up the runs, he produced a flurry of wickets to finish with figures of 4 for 65 off 17, leaving Surrey at 237-5 at close of play. Rashid had a good match against India U-19's last summer, and this is a nation who know something about spinners, when he racked up 114 runs and took 8 wickets. Adil Rashid looks like he could be, and should be, a future England star. The Windies and India are on their way this summer, let's see him in action. Some other cricket stuff..... The England team has spent all winter in Australia, then the World Cup, our domestic season has already started, they will play all summer in domestic and international matches, September brings the 20/20 championship, then in October they can have a brief rest before they jet off to Sri Lanka in November. For our team, how much cricket is too much ? Brother in law mk.2, aka The Lurker, had a good game at the Yorkshire CCC ground in sunny Scarborough last week, 73 runs and a wicket, good going mate. How about the three of you keep me in touch with your cricketing exploits, text or e-mail, we could run a mini league for the three of you ?

Ah, That Caribbean Atmosphere Well, it's been decidedly lacking through this World Cup, can you imagine England playing Argentina in a two thirds empty stadium in the football world cup ? It wouldn't happen. In the poorly run cricket world cup though this is exactly what we have seen happining, the giants of the game playing each other in front of crowds the size of which are more common in Sunday league games. Faisal Hasnain, the ICC's chief financial officer has said that there is so much money rolling into the ICC coffers that they barely know what to do with it. In that case, why on earth have the ticket prices been set so high that the local in the Windies can't afford to watch the games ? The atmosphere at almost every match so far has been pretty flat and this is both a shame and an embarassment for the game and its organisers. Even though the ICC could have done something about the crowds (reduce ticket prices, let school children in free etc) when the problem became apparent early on in the competition, they have chosen to do nothing, except a bit of hand wringing and blame shifting. ""We had to rely on the advice of the local organising committee to establish the prices of the tickets. It is, in retrospect, a little too rich for the local palate," said Malcolm Speed, Chief Executive Officer of the ICC. The organisers knew well before the World Cup started that ticket sales had been dreadful, but they did nothing, and Malcolm Speed's attempt to blame someone else is pathetic, Mr. Speed, you're the boss, the buck stops with you. I've been dissapointed watching the World Cup on telly, it's much more fun with the crowd buzzing, yelling and cheering, and to be fair, the few hundred people that have attended each match have done their best, but it's hard for a quarter crowd to make enough noise to fill a whole stadium. Which leads on to the stadiums, whether or not they've been built with Chinese money in an obscure attempt to embarass Taiwan (does anyone understand why these two non-entities of cricket are involved in sponsorship ?). What on earth are the Windies going to do with all these big new/rebuilt stadia, if they can't fill them for a World Cup then what can they fill them for ? A Bob Marley tribute concert ? A Windies cricket fundraising barbeque ? Let's hope that the World Cup Final is played before a full house, or even in a finished stadium, for all of us cricket lovers the world over, we couldn't have a worse advert for the game than empty seats for the last match.

World Cup News The World Cup finished yesterday when Nixon and Bopara's almost heroic stand just failed to beat Sri Lanka. Michael Vaughan - do Rauf and Bowden realise that a man is only out when the bat has come into contact with the ball, if it misses, then he's not out. Andrew Flintoff - twat of a shot. Kevin Pieterson - can't be expected to save the day every bloody match. Bowlers - all steady, not a bad display, still need more out and out wicket takers though. Fielding - generally rather good.

Ya Big Soft Poof Frank Lampard that is, he can't play footy tonight beacuse he's got a sprained wrist, what is wrong with our dismal modern day footballers ? Apart from having far too much money. Jimmy Anderson played cricket last week with a broken finger, on his bowling hand, you would think that would hurt some, but did Jimmy drop out, did he buggery, he was out there with the England team playing for his country. Goalkeeper Bert Troutman broke his neck when playing in the 1956 FA Cup Final, hard man Bert didn't even ask for the magic sponge until the whistle had gone for full time. In 1874 Hugh Fotherington-Smythe of the East India Company organised an Officers vs. The Natives game in Bombay, Hugh suffered the unfortunate indignity of having both legs chewed off by a marauding tiger on the long off boundary, did it put him off ? Did it buggery, he just came in to field at 1st slip instead so he wouldn't have to do so much running. Modern footballers, soft as shite. At time of writing (half time), England have not managed a goal against lowly (they only have two full time players) Andorra.

The Mystery Deepens In his day job, Roebuck Sarfraz was known as......Bob Woolmer. (Seen over at After Grog Blog)

Who Killed Bob Woolmer ? Jamaican police have posted a list of suspects in the Bob Woolmer murder case...... Shoaib Akhtar 10/1 Inzamam-ul-Haq 50/1 Michael Vaughan 100/1 Geoffrey Boycott 250/1 Alan Donald 5/1 Lord Lucan 5/1 Tony Blair Evens Gravy the Transexual 5/1 The Easter Bunny 50/1 Hanse Cronje's Restless Ghost Evens Winston Kodogo (after all, he's a villain, and a jailbird, we've got him in the cells now) 10/1 Freddy Flintoff (claims to have no memory of the night in question) 25/1 Robert Mugabe Evens Al-Qeeda 2/1 General Musharraf 11/10 on

Ronnie Irani leads a gym class with Australian fans.

It's a dangerous game cricket, here's a moment when a New Zealand batsman gets shot by a sniper in the stands, well that's what it looks like. Even better is the way his team mates and even the commentators just laugh at him.

Blarney Army Ireland managed a great draw against Zimbabwe yesterday, mostly due to a wonderful 155no from Jeremy Bray, who is a born and bred Irishman, born and bred in Sydney, Australia that is. But hey ho, Kevin Pieterson is as English as I am. Bray carried his bat through Ireland's innings and seemed to be having a tremendous time at the wicket, he was smiling and grinning all the way through. The Irish fans were a hoot as well, the onlooking Windies locals were somewhat bemused when the match stopped for rain and a giant leprechaun jumped up and led a Guinness fuelled conga line around the stands. Of the rest of the Irish team, only (Irish born) Andrew White did anything worth mentioning with the bat with his total of 28. On the bowling side, born and bred Irishman (see a trend here ?) Andre Botha (born and bred in Johannesburg, South Africa) picked up two wickets, as did born and bred Irishman Trent Johnston (born and bred in Wollongong, Australia). Anyway, well done to the Rest Of The World Team, oh sorry, Ireland I meant to say. In other groups, Canada got off to a slightly better start than they did in the last World Cup when they scored a dismal, record setting 36 against Sri Lanka. This time they scored a more respectable 199 against Kenya, but still lost by 7 wickets. The World Cup starts in earnest today for England with an important match against New Zealand, due to the odd nature of the competition, if we win this we are pretty much guaranteed a semi-final place, I would explain but the rules seem to have been designed just to annoy the casual cricket fans. Let's not even mention power plays. England's fast bowler James Anderson has broken the little finger on his bowling hand, not the best start to our campaign, but about typical for Anderson who has a fine record of returning home injured from major competitions. Here we go then, England to win, Vaughan to get a ton and Monty a five wicket haul.

I know I've featured this before, but you've got to laugh at the great man making a right plonker of himself.

Eat, Sleep, Gym That's the slogan on Pakistan Captain Inzamam-ul-Haq's t-shirt, well, as Meatloaf might say, two out of three ain't bad.

Batting Collapse ? What happened there then, it was all going so well, Vaughan and Bell were scoring at a steady rate and then, skittles. KP and Freddy are going to have to get themselves in gear pretty quickley, Vaughan was a delight to watch, when he is on form he is one of the best batsman in the world to watch, perfect timing, beautifully executed economic strokes. Monty did well again and kept his bowling very tight, none of our bowlers were shockingly expensive, but after getting a good start, our middle order didn't do enough to carry us on to a decent total. If I was a Windies fan though I'd have much more to moan about, India blew them away for a mere 85 runs yesterday and finished the run chase in 18 overs, oh dear, it's not looking too good for the hosts. Our World Cup group opens on Wednesday with a clash between the country fielding the oldest team in the tournament, Canada, playing Kenya, who sometimes find it in themselves to upset decent sides. We start our World Cup on Friday against a good New Zealand side, so we get our hardest group match out of the way first.

Yorkshire Cricket, It's (not) All Smiles Now So, pudgy dancer / reality tv star Darren Gough has returned, and now former captain Martin Moxon is on board as well. Moxon wasn't exactly all smiles at yesterday's press conference was he ? He seemed a little grim in the tv interview as well. I don't like to be downbeat about Yorkshire CCC, but again I wonder if something is going on that we don't know about and wouldn't like ?

Mighty Bermuda Are Humbled By England Although we did try really hard to muck it up early on in our innings, thanks to Dalrymple for dragging the score into respectability. Bermuda have an unusual training tactic, whoever scores least in any given innings is fed to their spin bowler Dwane Leverock. He should get in a team with Mike Gatting, they'd make a couple of good all rounders.....(boom, tish).

Less Than Two Weeks Now! Cricket World Cup So, an easy stroll for England then ?

Damn, Missed That's fifty quid wasted then, now we'll have to beat them on the pitch, again.

Knighthoods All Round ? We won a game of cricket! Against Australia!! Actually, we gave them a bit of a spanking, it wasn't even a tight match. Wonders really do never cease.