The points deduction for Yorkshire is way, way overdue. Presumably it is being kept back until the ECB are sure that it won't hurt them.

If we go down, do we get first dibs on Colwyn Bay?

The philosopher Bertrand Russell once wrote words to the effect that the best way to resolve a difference of opinion was discussion but that, in any debate, there might come a time when you concluded that the person with whom you were arguing was an idiot and any further talking was just a waste of time. I wonder if the Counties might have got to that point with the ECB. Only an idiot would distort the calendar to such an extent that most County grounds saw hardly any cricket in August by introducing a competition designed for people who don't like cricket. I'd love to see the Counties tell the ECB to shove the 16.4 and all its money. Schedule a two division, all-play-all County Chamionship from mid-May to mid-September with a Blast competition on Friday nights. Sorted.

I’m getting puzzled by this: not the proposals but the process. When I was involved in consulting, I was told that the client usually knew what conclusion he wanted so your first job was to write the final report. In the second phase, you gathered evidence to support the conclusion and in the final phase you “sold” the ideas to those people who were going to be affected.

So far, so ECB. The conclusion was always going to be that there should be less red ball cricket in order to make room for more hit-and-giggle. The “evidence” is transparently rigged to support that. (The suggestion that The Hundred is “best v best” is up there with “there were no parties in Downing Street” when it comes to non-credible assertions.) But then the final phase, where Andrew Strauss is being dispatched to indoctrinate the troops, is being horribly botched. It’s difficult to see how the ECB could just blunder on with what they’ve got given what appears to be unanimity amongst press and supporters that it isn’t a workable solution. So what are they going to do? Throw another bone to the Counties in the hope that the turkeys will vote for Christmas again as they did with The Hundred? Tear the report up and start again? Come clean that they find first class cricket an annoyance that gets in the way of making money?

I was going to ask for answers on a postcard but, actually, the back of an envelope would probably do better than the ECB can manage.

It would be nice to think that, after having tried hard to perform the quart-and-pint-pot trick yet only succeeded in provoking uproar, the members of the HPR would now grow a pair and go back to the ECB with the view that as long as The Hundred exists, there is no prospect of a sensible domestic season.
It would also be nice to think that their brush with Allen Stanford would have taught the ECB that when you sell cricket's soul to wandering mercenaries, you are likely to regret it in the long run. Sadly, I don't think they care. Money first: cricket nowhere.

It's a very easy answer for me. I fell out of love with T20 almost as soon as it began and I now have no interest in it. You could have daily audiences of 50 million and I wouldn't care.
The point should be that it is not a binary choice. They are different games with different audiences. Why does hit-and-giggle have to monopolise the fixture list?

Some years ago I had a long and friendly conversation with my dentist, who was Swedish and didn't understand cricket. Not only that, but he didn't understand how anybody could understand cricket. We concluded that you had to grow up with it, in which case it entered your soul and stayed there. That's how it is with me: I grew up watching what was then 3-day cricket and have loved it ever since. Sadly, kids today will not have that chance. Red ball cricket has been off accessible TV for donkey's years. The CC is played at times when families cannot attend - and even if they did they would find a poor welcome: try going to any of the major grounds (including Edgbaston) as a paying spectator at a CC game and see how long it takes you to find either a sandwich or a toilet that isn't locked.
But then you see how the players react. Ben Stokes and Jimmy Anderson have both recently lauded red ball cricket. Late last year I was listening to radio commentary on one of the games from our push for the title. An injured OH-D was on the mike and pointed out that Chris Woakes had chosen to play in this CC game when he could have been playing IPL "because this matters". Quite. I wish the ECB could see that.

James Hildreth has announced that he will retire at the end of the season. Whilst his pomp is somewhat behind him now, he remains a model for those of us who believe that batsmanship should contain some style as well as power. Good luck to him in whatever comes next.
He is the present holder of a title once held by Andy Moles, namely which current England qualified player has scored the most first class runs without playing a Test Match? He has nearly 18,000 of them. If you don't like spoilers, look away now, but next in line is Darren Stevens (about 17,000) and Steve Davies (in the 14,000s). Both those two could well be retiring at the end of the year too. There are then a few players betweeen 9,000 and 12,000 currently lead by Sam Northeast. I have often wondered if this title would eventually fall to Sam Hain ...

I have a Sky Sports subscription - largely so that I can watch Test cricket. In bored moments recently, I have turned on to the "Sky Hundred" channel in the hope of something watchable. Mistake. I can rarely last more than a dozen or so balls before dismissing it as glorified pub cricket. The standard is genuinely dire.
OK, so it's not meant for me and to that extent the ECB have hit the bullseye. There are, though, two things that would really worry me if I were promoting this competition. The first, as noted by paulbear, is the lack of "names". Fat, semi-retired has-beens and kids from nowhere do not a competion make. The second is the number of times the commentators feel compelled to say how "exciting" everything is. No it isn't and the more often your contract requires you to pretend it is, the less credibility you have.
Now, you can launch a product on hype alone but, at some point, it has to offer something of quality. The Hundread is a long way short of that and, whilst I would love to see it gone, that would leave a massive hole in the ECB and County finances. Fold it back into the Blast, please, as soon as possible.

Someone coined the term "donkey slog" for T20 cricket, which I thought was rather apt. In the spirit of Monty Python's competition to find a derogatory term for the Belgians, though, I don't think I can find a more derogatory name for the new competition than "The Hundred".

And the shot of the day was Sibley's lofted drive over extra cover. True, if the fielder there had been a bit taller he would have been caught but that was not the case. Great to see him have the confidence to play such a shot.

You could make a sensible schedule out of one red ball and one white ball competition. Three limited overs competitions is just insane. Counties are effectively trying to fund three squads: CC, Blast and RLODC as the main players from the Blast get drafted to the Hundred. Surely that is not sustainable - but maybe that's the ECB's plan....

😡😡😡😡😡

I was at that match and still recall Clayton's "protest". I guess it wasn't long before fielding restrictions were brought into play but it was all legal then.
Looking at the scorecard, I see that Sonny Ramadhin played in that match but I confess I have no recollection of him. I really didn't think I was old enough to have seen Ramadhin....

When he's fit, he'll be with an England squad so what's the point. Sadly, the ideal County player these days is one who is not quite good enough to play for England.

The first thing that occurred to me on seeing the TV clip was to ask whether the wickets had been put down properly. It would be nice if, occasionally, a side were rewarded for actually knowing the laws.
I wouldn't have wanted to be the umpire who called for another TV review live, though.

What actually happened on that final, final ball? Did anybody legally break the stumps with a batsman out of his ground? The keeper broke the stumps his end but the runner was in. Then all sorts of people were pulling up stumps at both ends with or without the hand holding the ball.

Just being pedantic, wouldn't question the result as given.

Yes, I used to be a member there and in the early days it was a pretty and friendly ground. Then they started pouring concrete and the atmosphere disappeared. The writing was on the wall when the van selling £2.00 bacon rolls was replaced by a £4.50 bacon ciabatta.....

That's a frighteningly dreadful interview containing barely one word with which I could agree. I'd be embarrassed if I were that incoherent after ten pints.
In particular, how does anyone come up with the idea that 12 teams playing 10 games constitutes a sane competition?

I'll suggest Nick Knight against Hampshire in 2002.