[Jaspersharpe]

Should be a marvellous day. Enjoy!

[Grubes]

Indeed. Off to Trent Bridge tomorrow - feel a bit sick with nerves

Enjoy more than a little bit jealous sat in this office.

[Jaspersharpe]

Yorkshire's pride and unity earn title - http://www.espncricinfo.com/county-cricket-2014/content/story/780017.html

Excellent.

[rich d]

 Nearly all the squad came through the academy too.

[Grubes]

 
Yorkshire Yorkshire Yorkshire 

[DaveC]

...and Australia's next coach will be? Great to see Dizzy, one of cricket's nice guys doing such good work.

[asthenia]

What a day. My mum was in tears. It was nice as well that the players took time to thank as many of the supporters as possible - my sister got a big sweaty hug from Ryan Sidebottom

[DaveC]

Phil Hughes has died this afternoon local time. Just 25 years old. Very sad news.

[Richie Crouch]

Terribly sad, a great cricket player gone too soon. As well as Hughes' family... I can't even imagine how the bowler is coping with this, poor guy.

[Jaspersharpe]

Just heard about this. Awful news.

Although the bowler must feel terrible, I read that the cause was that he was wearing a helmet that didn't protect that area of the head whereas some do. Just a freak accident really. So sad.

[cofe]

The #putoutyourbats hashtag on twitter is rather moving.

[Jaspersharpe]

Indeed. I've been in bits reading that. Especially Richie Benaud's tribute......

[Jaspersharpe]

http://www.theguardian.com/sport/blog/2014/dec/10/why-do-we-play-cricket?CMP=share_btn_tw

[DaveC]

This thread has been noticeably quiet of late. WTF is going on with the English cricket team? Beaten by Bangladesh in a 'must win' game?! Losing to a relative minnow in an early game or a dead rubber is one thing but....

[tomtom]

We are shit.

[DaveC]

I love pithy analysis...

[tomtom]

I love pithy analysis...

:D

I have two unopened (assuming they are cricket based) emails from Australian colleagues in my inbox...

We (as a nation) seem geared up for test cricket - and ODI's, 20-20 etc.. are just something we don't seem to aspire to as much as Test.. Which of course is absolutely correct Yesterday, in the middle of our innings, we seemed quite content to trundle along - to do 'just enough' to get the right result (of course we didnt..). Which might be perfect for the slow and steady nature of test cricket - but yesterday we should have had Bell and Root just smashing it out of the ground etc...

Lots of shit (it is shit) about getting KP back blah blah (its on the radio as I type) which is just a smokescreen..

[butters]

This thread has been noticeably quiet of late. WTF is going on with the English cricket team? Beaten by Bangladesh in a 'must win' game?! Losing to a relative minnow in an early game or a dead rubber is one thing but....

England have always been pretty bad at one day cricket but they really seem to have fallen behind the rest of the world at an increasing rate in this form of the game lately and this WC has proven the point. Ten runs an over in the last ten overs is considered a minimum average now and I suspect that overall it is something in excess of a run a ball over the course of an innings - while I haven't looked at the figures I suspect that England have rarely looked like scoring six an over in the last ten let alone as an average. There are some reasons for this higher rate of scoring - the shortening of the boundaries, an increased level of fitness and the effect of the Twenty\20 game all have to take into consideration but these are the same for both teams - the boundaries don't get shoved back 15 metres when England come into bat...

Also it shouldn't be forgotten that the Ashes were moved to accommodate a winter of playing one day cricket almost exclusively to prepare for this WC and the end result was a team with very little to no confidence that has been thrown together at the last minute with the nominated captain removed in the final run up. Given that, the increasing ability of the "minnows" and at best we were looking at a quarter final place anyway then it is no huge surprise that we lost in the manner that we did.

The real fun starts now though and we don't have the option to fall back on being good at Test cricket because we are probably at about the same level in that form as well currently. Quite how they are thinking that they are going to get out of this mess will be interesting excruciating to witness no doubt and the net result of it all will probably equate to the square root of fuck all.

We are shit.

Back to the good old days then really.

[butters]

Lots of shit (it is shit) about getting KP back blah blah (its on the radio as I type) which is just a smokescreen..

Simon Barnes is pretty much on the money as usual.

[Jaspersharpe]

It's a mess from the top down and the performance in the WC was depressingly predictable. The idea was that we were going to be totally prepared as we were "concentrating entirely on one day cricket" for the past few months. That should have meant experimentation in the squad and team leading to a settled side with various options for different scenarios.

What we actually got was basically the same squad with the same captain (who anyone could see was on the verge of a breakdown and needed rest) bumbling along doing nothing until it was obviously so bad that the management's hand was forced and they dropped him, a few games before the World Cup. Morgan (who himself was completely out of form) never stood a chance as confidence was zero and there was no time to make the wholesale changes that were clearly necessary.

So we carried on bumbling into the competition, somehow expecting the same players to miraculously become a world beating side despite the fact that every time we played a decent team (or in India's case a team who could be arsed) we got thrashed.

Quell surpise. Moores out.

Oh and on Petersen, I'm with Marina....

http://www.theguardian.com/sport/blog/2015/mar/04/kevin-pietersen-thatcher-england-batsman-return

....and what butters said

[butters]

wholesale changes that were clearly necessary.

Oh and on Petersen, I'm with Marina....

http://www.theguardian.com/sport/blog/2015/mar/04/kevin-pietersen-thatcher-england-batsman-return

That also touches on something I had overlooked - the incoming chairman in the svelte form of bluff Yorkshireman Colin Graves and his amazing parlour trick of putting his size 11 foot in it before he has even taken on the role officially. Good to know that the boss in waiting is no ham fisted fool isn't it. In fact I am so impressed by his PR skills I may have to "invent" the word twatosaurus especially for him. 

[rich d]

To be fair to him, he took over Yorkshire when they'd been relegated. He made changes, publicly said he was ashamed of the players and management and that that position for Yorkshire was unacceptable. I would say say that is exactly what England need. It brought yorkshire the title. It's either that or get some rhubarb sticks in.

[butters]

To be fair to him, he took over Yorkshire when they'd been relegated. He made changes, publicly said he was ashamed of the players and management and that that position for Yorkshire was unacceptable. I would say say that is exactly what England need. It brought yorkshire the title. It's either that or get some rhubarb sticks in.

He may well prove to be what England need but bringing up the possibility of a way back into the England squad for KP during a WC and effectively undermining them even further is not what I would choose to define as an auspicious start for the chairman in waiting is it.

You also neglected to mention mothers pinny - anyone who knows their cricket knows how important that it is...   

[Sloper]

I blame the Irish myself.

[butters]

I blame the Irish myself.

As much as I would love to pin the blame on you and\or Eion Morgan for the farce that was England's now ended world cup showing it would take more blustering than I can manage even on a good day. 

Meanwhile Andy Bull writes yet another decent piece for the Grauniad. Some interesting points to say the least.