Two 23 year-olds struggling to make it in first class cricket

Azeem Rafiq, it was announced last week, will be leaving Yorkshire at the end of the season in search of 4 day and one day cricket after Yorkshire only used him for Twenty20 this year.   That seems amazing to me.   I can understand that he may not always play in the 4 day team as they may choose sometimes to go seam-heavy and use Adil Rashid as the only spinner to support them, but in ODI cricket his non-selection is a bit of a puzzle.

At 23 Rafiq still has time on his side but he'll need to pick his next County well.   I wonder if Sussex will go after him.   They're short of a spinner and have had to resort to taking James Tredwell on loan this year...plus they also resurrected Panesar's career not so long ago (before he hit self-destruct).

Another youngster leaving his County for altogether different reasons is Chris Jones of Somerset.   Despite a glorious century against the visiting Australian's last summer, Jones hasn't quite been able to translate potential into results and has decided to stop trying.   He's going to go into the world of proper work....which must be a wrench for anyone who has put so many years into pursuing a cricket career.   He's not the first (Alex Loudon comes to mind) and he won't be the last, but what a pity.

Good luck to both of them.

More on player discipline...

My County Sussex have been quick to do exactly as I suggested counties would do following the James Foster ban and have demonstrated to all that they take discipline seriously by issuing a statement about how they are disciplining Murray Goodwin. You'll note that there is no actual punishment for Goodwin though - just a verbal ticking off for now.

Interesting view from Derek Pringle yesterday too. He hopes that the push for greater player discipline may bring the umpire back to the centre of the game. Which got me thinking....has the crass implementation of the UDRS by the ICC and national boards led to a loss of respect for umpires? I certainly don't think it can help that players get to review decisions rather than umpires having sole discretion on when to use technology.

And Pringle also raises drinking with umpires after the close of play. That's something that has dropped off in club cricket too in my experience, although I do sometimes share a pint with an umpire or both of them.

Pints or not, it appears that under my watch Steyning won't be retaining the Sussex League fair play award, but I'm at a loss as to what I could have done differently to achieve a 10 out of 10!

Joe Gatting for England?!?

I doubt it will happen sadly, but if Joe Gatting plays for England - as this piece speculates - then it will be great news for Sussex!

Abject Middlesex

I got to watch the Sussex v Middlesex match at Hove today and Middlesex really were terrible. The wicket wasn't fantastic but they really did give their wickets away in ways that a club team would have felt embarrassed about. David Malan chipping it straight to short cover and Neil Dexter clipping the ball straight to deep square leg were perhaps the two worst, and only Berg emerged with any credit at all.

The game was over at the half way point really, but Middlesex weren't great in the field either with Joyce and Luke Wright making the chase look absurdly easy....which it was!

I find it hard to believe that Middlesex could play worse than that, but a good day to be a Sussex supporter...

Will Shafayat make it back?

I was amazed when I got The Spin yesterday and read about Bilal Shafayat, aged 26 and apparently on the County Cricket scrapheap, or the 1st XI scrapheap anyway. A teenage prodigy, I assumed that the very least Shafayat would make of his cricketing career was to be a regular County pro. I realised he was struggling to make the impression his talent suggested he should (I've now seen he has a first-class average of 30), but it didn't occur to me he might find it difficult to find a County.

Interesting then that he's trying to make it back into the County game via Sussex 2s, with some decent initial success. Owain Jones, a Steyning product who now plays his cricket at Horsham played in that match and he couldn't have been more complimentary about Shafayat's input. Such is Shafayat's experience and knowledge "he seemed more like 40 than 26" apparently. Only time will tell if Shafayat will make it back, but even if he doesn't it sounds like some of the Sussex 2's squad will benefit from his experience and be more likely to make it themselves as a result.

Same English cricket schedule next year!

Oh dear, I did say that I had little confidence - things are staying the same next year. Sad that apparently Sussex's own Chairman seems to think that last year's schedule with the limitless Twenty20 cricket and no Championship cricket at the peak of the summer is best.

I got such poor value from my Sussex membership last summer as I couldn't go to games the whole season, and the main window I had was the Twenty20 window. I went to one or two games but they're meaningless until it gets to a knockout stage so I didn't go back (not to mention the annoying blaring music, inance comments over the loud speaker, etc). I certainly won't be considering a Sussex membership next year.

Sussex secure vital win in near darkness

Sussex needed to win to stay in the hunt in the Pro40 competition and so against all the odds they found a way to play on Sunday against Somerset, winning a D/L match that was meant to be Twenty20 but ended up as 20/15. One of my co-spectators at the Oval on Friday was there and described the conditions as the worst he'd ever seen cricket played in, with the light incomparably worse to the Oval. But it being a one-day game - and a County game rather than an international - the conditions were not considered to be dangerous.

As some of the reports on the game elsewhere have said, good on the players and officials for playing the match.

Division 2 hotting up

Sussex are going along very nicely in their match against Derbyshire and look set to go back to the top of Division 2 unless the weather intervenes after all their top four all scored hundreds today. They'll go back to the top at the expense of Glamorgan who were fairly well beaten by Middlesex in the end - Middlesex have now beaten both the top 2 away having beaten Sussex earlier in the season, despite my assertions that Sussex were in a decent position after day 3. And to make matters worse Glamorgan have lost their skipper Jamie Dalrymple to a broken thumb.

Things are looking interesting given that Worcestershire won against Surrey and put themselves back in the hunt - they play Middlesex next and have Sussex last game of the season. And to ensure the race for promotion stays a lively one, Sussex's next match is at Hove v Glamorgan. You can see the Div 2 fixtures here. Gloucestershire may even feel that they are favourites given their run in.

The Gareth Batty incident v Worcestershire makes for interesting reading. The spectators who were abusing him had no right to, but why he reacted is difficult to understand. I can only imagine that he was really looking forward to returning to his old club, only to be given loads of grief from the spectators. And it must have hurt him even more that Stephen Davies didn't get the same stick. But if you take the money - even after many years trying your heart out for a small County, I guess you have to accept you might get some grief upon your return....

Sussex supporters narrowly missed by meteorite

Must have come as quite a shock as they sat "quietly supping their pints" when a meteorite came towards them and bounced into one of their chests!

Sussex fail to do Arundel Castle venue justice

Sussex sadly didn't compete today versus Surrey at Arundel Castle but the ground was great (check out the view from one side of the ground above), and the organisers toned down all the non-cricket stuff....lower volume on the music and no dancing girls. Sussex had lost within the first few overs as Symonds and Tremlett took early wickets, which is always the risk with Twenty20 because there's rarely time to wrestle back the advantage once it's been grabbed.

The top photo is Surrey celebrating one of their several early wickets. Sussex stumbled there way to 121 which was a good recovery from where they were, but when Kirtley dropped Hamilton-Brown early on in Surrey's reply, their misery was complete. There's always an upside though - results elsewhere meant that Sussex went through to the quarter-finals anyway.

Cramming in the matches brings in more money but doesn't necessarily help the best team win

The concensus at Steyning seems to be that the planned schedule for the Twenty20 tournament is crazy. Sussex sit pretty at the top of the Southern league and look in a good position to get through to the next stage of the competition after a Matt Prior inspired win tonight. The cause of contention is that the next stage is a quarter-final. A league - as everyone appreciates - is a far better way of finding out which team is best when compared against a one-off knock out competition. And yet the quarter-finals mean that Sussex could be a comfortable top in the league stage and then - Twenty20 being what it is (open to a fair bit of chance) - they could lose a one-off match in the quarter-finals on not even make the finals day.

Scheduling for money once again, rather than considering that it might be nice if the best team wins. The top 2 from the North and South league should go through straight to the finals day.

But, totally unsurprisingly, it isn't just the ECB that are trying to cram in more fixtures for more money. The IPL franchises don't even try to hide their lust for money:

"The number one reason for adding teams and having more matches was having more revenue. If the number of matches is reduced, it doesn't work for me," a franchise official said. "We can address the problems [player fatigue] arising out of that; there is a solution. But reducing matches and the reduction of revenue is not on."

So to summarise, sod the players - we want our cash. I don't imagine people that think like this - as in England - could care less who wins unless it financially benefits them in some way.

Sussex's Twenty20 last night v Gloucestershire

C...c...c...c...cold.

Not the normal Sussex team as England play Scotland on Saturday.

Very young dancing girls. Smoked during the innings change over - must have been over 16?

Very young crowd - loads of kids.

The young boys were more interested in the dancing girls than the cricket.

The girls didn't seem to know what a 4 or a 6 was but they knew to dance when the music blared out.

Poor Sussex fielding.

Guy over the loud speaker trying to get each stand to cheer on his say so.

Many more daughters with their dads than I expected - the young girl was very knowledgeable.

A lot of teeth chattering wives suggesting that it was so cold that they should go home.

Dad's saying "You're enjoying it aren't you kids? Yes, 'course you are."

Good business at the club shop as people bought extra layers.

Guy over the loud speaker identifying the bowlers and catchers wrong.

Gloucestershire claiming a catch that wasn't (shouldn't the player be fined/banned?)

Nash trying to run one back to the bowler (run out).

Almost no 2s.

Horns blaring from the loud speaker whenever the bowling changed (nearly every over).

Guy over the loud speaker telling us that they have special packages to watch England on Friday while also watching Sussex (good luck with that - may want to talk to the person who decided to schedule a County Twenty20 on the same night as England play in the World Cup).

Many leaving before the end, including me.

Sussex lost by 8 runs. About as many runs as they gave away through sloppy ground fielding.

Sussex v Derbyshire game could go to the wire

If the rain holds off (I gather the start is delayed so that may be wishful thinking), Sussex v Derbyshire could be a tight match after Sussex completely collapsed to 71-7 last night in their 2nd innings, a lead of 160.

But cunningly Sussex have a guy who averages 61 in Championship cricket this year coming in at 9 (RMJ) and one who averages 74 coming in at 10 (Yasir Arafat). Not entirely sure what Anyon was doing at 7....

Martin-Jenkins retires

Robin Martin-Jenkins not only helped Sussex save the follow on against Worcestershire, but also announced that he will retire in July before the season is over. Seems strange to retire mid-season but I can only assume that cricketer's contracts run as all others do with a notice period - I'm surprised that he's not contractually obliged to play until the end of the season.

Sussex will feel disappointed, but they do have Luke Wright in the all-rounders role and it could be no bad thing for him if he wants to push for an England spot.

Although Sussex are struggling against Worcestershire, they have benefited from the strange rules that allowed both Michael Hardy and Luke Wright to play from Day 2 having gone to Downing Street on Monday evening. I'll never get used to that. And I'm not sure what stopped them playing Day 1 (which finished at 6pm) and then travelling to Downing Street? Or missing it altogether as they had a County match to play in!

Sussex continue downward slide

After morale sapping losses against teams they should beat in matches that they will feel they could have won, Sussex suffered further agony yesterday as the Unicorns chased 326 to win on what must have been an incredible Arundel wicket. On the plus side, good to see Joe Gatting back in form.

I knew that the early season wins couldn't continue! I'm off to watch the first day of Sussex v Worcestershire now so I'll report back on how they bounce back...

Sussex/Middlesex swings in favour of Sussex

All the pressure is on poor old Malan as Middlesex try to get to the 243 that Sussex set them today. Panesar scored 46 not out - a career best - but it shouldn't have been that many if Owais Shah has caught him at 3rd slip, and that drop could be crucial in the final analysis.

It was really interesting watching the two captains. I only saw Strauss trying to get the final two wickets but it seemed like they had given up trying to get Hodd out (who got a hundred) as they gave him one the whole time, and yet they didn't put that much pressure on Panesar either. Looked a little strange to me, but O'Brien finally got Hodd out LBW to make the breakthrough - even then Panesar and Collymore still managed to put on 33 for the final wicket thanks to Shah's drop.

When Sussex fielded Collymore bowled two long hops to Strauss which got deposited to the cover boundary. Rather than ask his bowler to stop bowling there, Goodwin had a cover sweeper in the 4th over of the innings. I was sitting there thinking Collymore needed to come off or bowl better with a ring field when Scott Newman padded up to a straight one and Sussex were off the mark. My take out was that Sussex seem to rely on some wonder balls from their bowlers and accept that there may be some dross too - they try to limit the damage with a very in/out field. As long as it works then I'm all for it - they just need Malan out early tomorrow to put themselves in with a superb chance of another victory to keep their 100% season going.

Sussex start well

As an eternally pessimistic person, I'm now worried by how well Sussex have started the season!! They're sitting pretty at the top of Division 2 and have a 100% success rate this season - already some are saying that they are showing "they are too good for this Division". It's a bit early for all that!

I'm going to watch a bit of their next match v Middlesex at Hove, so I'll let you know if they really are too good for the Division - I doubt it!

Fox killing causes outrage in Hove

Sussex seem to have got into a bit of hot water for killing a fox that persistently damaged the ground at Hove - apparently all of 20 protesters gathered on Tuesday to demonstrate which gives you an idea of the scale of outrage!

Sussex probably have more to worry about given that one end of their ground is a building site at the moment....

Sussex announce Dilshan signing

Unlike Middlesex, Sussex are in a position to actually announce a class signing for the summer - Dilshan will play in Hove in Twenty20 cricket. The world's best Twenty20 batsman is not a bad bit of work by Sussex although without knowing what he's being paid it's difficult to know if he'll be good value for money.

Now all I need to do is work out what time I'd need to start work in order to complete a normal day's workload and get back to Hove in time to watch Dilshan play in evening Twenty20s....about 2am!