Posted by No, really.
No totting up bonus points in matches you had assumed were irrelevant. No poring over the rules to find out when exactly those bonus points are earned. No keeping track of all of this across three different matches.
For once, it’s simple. Unless we’ve missed something (highly likely) then if Sussex lose, they are relegated. If they don’t lose, Hampshire are relegated.
At the time of writing, Sussex look very much like they are going to lose, but Mike Yardy’s in and Mike Yardy’s a county titan, as oxymoronic as that is. We suppose someone also has to survive at the other end, but Yardy’s titania is surely infectious enough for that to be no issue.
We fully expect Mike Yardy to be dismissed the moment we click ‘publish’.
We’re going with ‘Mike’ Yardy, not ‘Michael’?
Bit late for debate considering his career may well end any second now.
Oh, he’s out.
Doh!
Wasn’t it him who downed a glass of water that Freddie Flintoff had been resting his nuts in?
AN Cook c Anderson b Chapple 6 (23m 16b 1×4 0x6)
I can’t think of any comment to make about that, except that it made me smile for some unknown reason. Perhaps the idea of a 41-year-old opening the bowling, then getting the England captain out, has a certain end-of-season-ness about it, not least that Cook and Anderson were even playing.
I came out of a meeting shortly after 14:00, glanced at the scorecards.
I celebrated the fact that Middlesex had been crowned county championship runners up, albeit in absentia.
I then went through the “Sussex are in trouble but Yardy is still there” thought process. Without the help of this article, btw, just my own thoughts – crickey.
Then I clicked the refresh button; Yardy was out. What a terrible way for a county stalwart’s career to end.
Hampshire stay up! I don’t think it was in any way due to my tireless support of their cause, but then again, maybe it was. I’ll take the credit, anyway.
Speaking of the X-Factor this is an extract from a recent cricinfo piece.
“Maxwell clearly has “it”. His brilliance frustrates in its unpredictability but he didn’t get the nickname “Big Show” for nothing, even if he hates it. That electric shiver comes whenever he plays and whatever he does”