Hold the presses, JB has got a game.

Hain does appear over the last 4 years, to have got some awful decisions, usually caught behind when he hasn't got near the ball. We need everyone to 'Chip In' here and get a good score going otherwise if conditions are good for batting, we could be facing a big deficit unless the bowlers do us another favour.

Not having Barker in the side is a surprise unless he is feeling jaded. Also surprised to see Tongue not taking the new ball but that does appear to be a thing with some counties, not giving a Test player first use of the ball.

Even if it is our neighbours, it's good he gets some cricket as he might not get very much with our current crop of seamers. He is a very decent bloke, I have spoken to him a few times most notably after the Royal London Cup Final where he signed my ticket and spoke at length whilst we waited for our coaches because we had stuffed Surrey by 3.50pm. He is very polite, decent and listens to what people say and he is a real contender for a PR job in cricket as his way with people is quite obvious. I wish him luck even if it is with the Pears.

A lot of people on here, me very much so, mentioned the need to have some variation, that variation was Barker and he did make a difference in the end, bowling well in both innings and he does bat as well. We do though, need to maybe get a spinner in. I am not a fan of part-time spin as it never really makes a big difference apart from changing things up for the sake of it. This is England's dilemma, playing Jacks in the Ashes series whilst Leach sat at home scratching his head. Jacks will never bowl out a side in the CC so why do England think he will do something at Test level. For this reason we need a proper front-line spinner and if people say it will weaken the batting, tough, we have enough batting there to make big enough scores, we shouldn't feel the need to carry the batsmen by filling the team full of allrounders.

Brilliant from the bowlers and Barker's spell this morning, like turning the clock back to 2012 (WTF, 14 years ago) and the little cricketer in my head is saying, "That bloody Sussex game, if only....". Can we please have pitches like this for the rest of the season, even though there were some awful shots and the overheads also played their part.

Flippin' 'eck.

He didn't make himself popular amongst old Essex team-mates when he mentioned the 1991 'Game-Swap' in his autobiography when he told of Essex and Lancashire 'Giving' each other victories during August Bank Holiday Monday, Essex played an insipid JPL game on the Sunday when their openers were told to go easy and not try and score too quickly and eventually Lancs got a very meagre target to chase in their pursuit of the JPL title and then on the Monday, on a very flat pitch, Lancs gave Essex 270 in the CC in about 70 overs. Both umpires (Duddlestone or Holder), were old hands at the ways that counties often exchanged games if both were chasing titles in separate game over a weekend and one of them was so baffled by the 'Target', that he stood by the stumps when the declaration came and gave it the old 'Double Teapot' stance and stayed like that for a while, it appeared dodgy at the time and The Times correspondent called it "A Christmas hamper for the starving.." and both side ignored questions until Topley admitted that the whole saga was planned before both games. I can remember that more than Topley's bowling.

Yep, bowling at anything above 230 would be nice but even then, we have to bowl well.

Only a small lead then, would be nice to be 200 ahead with wickets in hand by the end of today.

Farrell does appear to have a good reading of the game, seems to know about the players she's commentating on and I do think she is a genuine lover of county cricket.

They do appear to be very over-the-top with praise and when anything major happens.

Not sure I like the Essex commentary, with becomes 'Wiv', through becomes 'Frew' and third becomes 'Fird'.

As long as the conditions are the same when we bowl, we might get early wickets but as we know, it is sometimes harder to get numbers 7-11 out.

It looks like I did the right thing by not going, bad weather or not.

The weather looks a bit mixed for day 1 with rain maybe before lunch and after, not sure if I will go. Whoever wins the toss might decide to have a bowl if it looks dodgy overhead.

A waste of talent and you would think that if England are looking at him being 3-4 in the batting this Summer, he needs to get a few CC games before the Tests start but there might not be any by the time he gets back. He has spent a lot of time sitting around during his career.

He was called up by Pakistan a few times a season as they appear to change their team every 5 minutes and when he was here, he often was injured and the club were blamed even though they hadn't played him for weeks. We don't need these disruptions so glad he's elsewhere.

Might they try Barker, at least we know he can take wickets but it's just a case of fitness.

Pitches tend not to crumble anymore and maybe if a pitch is being prepared to crumble, if it all goes wrong and starts to 'Go' too early, the pitch inspector comes along for a visit. Our pitches at home are very bland' a bit like the ones in the 1970's and 80's even though they were 3-day games. Variation is needed though if only to stop opposing batsmen from getting 'In' against bowling that is virtually the same every over. I don't think Webster is going to trouble anyone with his bowling, I heard on the commentary yesterday that he is considered a proper all-rounder because his batting average is higher than his bowling average but that is nonsense as so many so-called 'All-rounders' hardly bowl but have a few cheap wickets and as Webster averages 1.77 wickets per first-class match, he is hardly up there with Woakes or a few others. Onwards and upwards, keep the faith and pray for better on Friday-Monday v Essex.