Is the table a true reflection of the cricket played over the season? Sour grapes?

It was an agonizing watch. Northants had wrapped up an innings and nearly 200 run victory within 3 days against local rivals, Leicestershire, a day earlier. However, the squad had to wait until the climax of the Derbyshire Vs Essex match before discovering whether next season we would be playing 1st or 2nd Division cricket. The equation was Essex being set a target of 5.5 runs-per-over in 70 overs. Essex succeeded, and thus took the second and final promotion spot by one point.

I have never been in a situation of watching another game shape the outcome of your own season and it’s quite unbearable at times. Being physically involved in a must-win match holds a huge element of control for you. And, in the end, it is what you are paid to do. Having to watch (luckily, or unluckily, whichever way you view it, the crucial match was being televised, even though it took quite a technical-minded individual to locate the match through the red-button on Sky Sports 37) two other teams decide your fate, means that all control is out of your hands.

Without the TV coverage we would have had to revert to good old Ceefax, when you never quite know how often it is being updated and thus almost don’t believe what it is telling you. This worry is pretty irrational when you consider that whether you find out the true score instantly or an hour later, it doesn’t change the result, and you are definitely still helpless in trying to affect the result should you discover the current score quicker. It is this theory that makes the option of just hitting the golf course and not worrying about the score relatively attractive. This is the theory I adopted during the final days’ play of the 2005 Ashes. It worked then. Maybe I should re-visit that school of thought next time I find myself in that situation. Text messages from good mate and Derbyshire captain, Chris Rogers, the previous evening only served to confuse matters further as I tried to decipher what were jokes and what were “fair dinkum”.

We should have had our fate in our own hands by the last match, however. We missed opportunities to bowl Surrey out and chase a low total on the final day, and we were also unable to avoid defeat against Essex the previous week. All this was in the last month and does not even include the defeat at home against a weakened Gloucestershire side and the numerous batting points dropped throughout the rest of the season.

One thing that is apparent at the end of the whole episode is that we are very adamant that we were the 2nd best team in the County Championship Division 2. We feel that we won more games in the right manner, i.e. bowling sides out twice. We also achieved this by all members of the bowling department contributing, not relying on one star performer. Not wanting to take anything away from Essex, but they finished above us by doing what they do best, and that is chasing targets within a day. Effectively one-day cricket.

The Derbyshire game was not the only occasion when Essex have been set a target on the last day by, virtue of declaration. When a side unsuccessfully sets you a target on a final day, one or both of two things have occurred. Firstly, they have not been bowled out twice. A 4-day game, or a 5-day test match are set out over a number of days in order to allow enough time for teams to take 20 wickets. Failure to do this should result in a draw. Secondly, in order for a target to be set, often ‘free runs’ will be given to the batting team to allow them to contrive a run-chase with the possibility of 3 results still. This allows the team who have perhaps been outplayed for 3 days, to take victory. This was the case at Derbyshire last week. If a game needs to be set-up after 3 days of uninterrupted play then the pitch is too docile. (A discussion that requires a whole separate blog!)

The not-so-old and not totally inaccurate adage that bowlers win 4-day cricket, and batsmen win 1-day cricket, becomes lost as soon as games are set-up and the magical evolution that should occur throughout a 4-day game is completely disregarded on the final day.

One problem in England is the weather. If games were not ‘set-up’ on the final day, then there would be far too many draws. One can argue though, that the reason the County Championship has a bonus structure like it does, is so that the better team will still score higher even if the game is drawn, therefore the problem caused by the weather is slightly mitigated.

This might well sound like sour grapes from a bowler who has missed out on 1st Division cricket next season, not to mention a hefty bonus! Regardless, it is a strong debate across the board methinks!

15 days until I jet off to Auckland and the airline I fly with are one of a few that do not allow professional cricketers the luxury of free extra weight allowance. There are a number that do allow the addition of a kit back, free of charge, for those who earn their living using such means. Singapore Air, that’s SINGAPORE AIR, do not.

As one might imagine, the cricket kit bag is as big and as heavy as any sport. Trying to pack sports equipment plus regular luggage for a five month trip to the other side of the world, does not really add up to 20kgs. Throw into the mix a female partner with her profession of “seeing how many handbags and pairs of shoes add up to 20kg’s” and the whole traveling task becomes almost impossible. Needless to say that the airline do not allow the extra weight for the latter profession either.

I understand that too much weight would eventually not allow the big white bird to leave terra-firma. However, this cannot be too much of an issue bearing in mind that if I wanted to pay an extra £36 per kg, then I could evidently take another 500kg’s without any problem whatsoever. Don’t get me started on the likelihood of the gentleman in the seat adjacent to mine being a good 10kg’s heavier than me and getting off scot-free. Maybe I should check-in fully padded up, with helmet and all, exercising my right to wear whatever attire I wish on the plane. That would free up some space in the suitcase.

There’s still a huge hole in my kitchen ceiling/bathroom floor.

Northants promotion hopes in the County Championship are still very much on. The solid draw away at Surrey consolidating, if not quite strengthening our push to hold on to second place. Avoiding defeat in London meant that we have a slight cushion going into our penultimate game, although it counts for very little bearing in mind we are playing the team directly below us, and away at that. The carrot that is certain promotion through a win combined with full bonus points at Chelmsford against Essex this week is a big one. If we fall short of victory, a draw going into our last game against bottom side Leicestershire, at home, will see us in a very strong position.

Unfortunately, I am still not involved. I will travel down to Essex should there be a chance of us clinching victory on the final day. Having played in two-thirds of the season, and contributed significantly, I would not miss this for the world. When one is based at certain clubs, promotions and trophy successes should be cherished. As opposed to the Surrey’s and recently Sussex’s of this world, where a player might experience success in at least one format almost every season.

The free time this week will give me opportunity to organise fixing that hole in my kitchen ceiling/bathroom floor.

Did you realise that there was a one-day series between England and Australia happening at the moment? Apparently the Australia side have won the series already, with three games to go. I guess that must mean that they are 4-0 up, which would make it a seven match series. Of course I did know all this, but it does seemed to have passed the nation by. If you read some of the articles in the press over the last week or two, it seems to have passed some of the players by too. I have to say that I am pleased. It shows how strong test cricket is in England and Australia. The fact that senior players such as Ponting, Collingwood and now Broad are missing some of the matches to rest, speaks volumes about where their priorities lie. Not one of the players would have conceded their place in the team for a match in whites.

As a county player, I would not let a session of play go by without wanting to know the latest score in the test match. It is what I have been brought up to play. Over the last two weeks, I must be forgiven for not realising there was a one-day game going on. On two occasions, I have found out the result of a game the next morning, having read a report in the paper about something I had no idea was being played.

I do feel that our waning interest in playing or spectating 50 over cricket is directly related to our success in that format over the last ten years. I also can’t help but feel that this is somewhat down to the fact that we never have a 50 over competition that runs throughout the season, and recently, the bulk 50 over county cricket has been finished before the end of May. Our premier, and only 50 over competition has always been played on early season wickets and often with early starts. Elsewhere in the world, 50 over leagues run throughout the whole season and are played on flat wickets where the most aggressive batsmen score most runs and the best bowlers take wickets. Good habits. Come mid-season, when the selectors come to pick their best 50 over cricketers, no county player has played that format for a number of weeks.

How have the English Cricket Board decided to rectify this? Next season the English game will be without a 50 over competition completely.

I do believe that 50 over cricket will eventually evolve into a different format, maybe 40 overs a side, but the next World Cup is definitely 50 overs, and England should give themselves the best chance of success. The ECB have largely ignored the views of the Professional Cricketers Association over the last few months in favor of commercial progress. Judging by the attendance at the Pro40 match in Northampton yesterday, it seems they might have got that wrong too.

Well, I’ve missed out on the Championship game against Middlesex this week. Purely a form issue I think, and I agree – to a point! I had a belting first 3 months, picking up wickets regularly before the ridiculous structure of  County Cricket meant that I then played only a handful of days’ cricket in a 6/7 week period. The momentum and rhythm I had gained was pulled from under my feet and I have been striving too hard to get it back.

However, it is that time of the season when everyone’s bodies start to fatigue and I’m sure I will still have a big part to play in the last 3 games of the season as and when required. Northants are in a very strong position going into these last 3 games. If we avoid a loss and pick up at least one win then we should find ourselves with a great chance of finishing in the top two, and therefore getting promoted to the County Championship Division One.

I take many positives going into the last month of the season despite my selection frustrations. Should we get promoted then I can take great pride in the fact that I have played 11 games out of a possible 13 so far, and this will hopefully increase in the next few weeks.

I am also really looking forward to a 5 month trip to Auckland this winter. I fly out in 4 weeks time to be the overseas professional coach and player at East Coast Bays Cricket Club. I have spent the last four winters training in Northampton and although these winters have been very productive, I do feel that I now have the knowledge and commitment to complete the same training whilst in the sunnier climate of North New Zealand!  It means that I will also continue to bowl throughout the winter and can build up stamina and bowling fitness right into the English preseason.

This week, without a match, gives me the opportunity to sort out the disaster that was my kitchen ceiling/bathroom floor falling through yesterday afternoon! It’s a good job it fell down when it did really. Instead of landing on my girlfriends head whilst she prepared her lunch, it landed in an empty room whilst she sat in the lounge watching Neighbours on the TV eating said lunch. The countdown to getting everything fixed and decorated before our flight to the other side of the world has begun.

Until then, I find myself being more than sufficiently fed and watered by my girlfriend’s parents, who live just 20 minutes away! The combination of not playing and staying there will no doubt mean either an increase is body fat or several tough sessions on the bike or treadmill! Or maybe both!

I often get asked how I fill my time when we are batting or when it’s raining and cricketers have nothing to do!

I have several methods of procrastination and they often get ticked off in a certain order.

Firstly, I always attempt The Times crossword. Before I impress you too much I must highlight the word ‘attempt’ and also acknowledge the fact that it is in fact the quick crossword in the T2 supplement of The Times. However, I think it’s still pretty impressive. I always enjoy being a 27-year-old male sportsman and watching the Shop Assistant lose his mortgage on the fact I was odds-on to pick up The Sun or The Star.

The variation in difficulty of the T2 crossword never ceases to amaze me. My usual method of approach is to put in all the easy answers, pass it to Rob White and then continue to do it ‘together’ (the crossword). If I get slightly frustrated with it then I then look for one of the 10 copies of The Sun or Star that the other lads have inevitably bought and try my hand at their “Two-Way Teasers”. (Other crosswords!)

If I have a good run with the crosswords then I continue on to the Sudoku and massage my ego by congratulating myself on my obvious intelligence.

If I get totally disillusioned with the puzzles then I put it down to one of my rare unintelligent days and move on to my next time-killer.

It is worth mentioning that if we have time on our hands, we will, as bowlers, head over to the indoor school and have a bat on the bowling machine. I personally feel like Don Bradman on the bowling machine, but when I find myself facing bowlers in a match situation, I probably bat more like Don King.

Whilst I’ve made the effort to walk all the way over to the indoor school at the other side of the ground, I would probably pop next door and do a gym session of some description too. During the season, it is all maintenance work so we don’t get stiff and sore leading into the next days play.

After a hugely productive morning, the only thing on my mind whilst I head back over to the changing rooms and see Rob still trying to complete the T2 crossword, is a huge and probably slightly early lunch.

If it is a batting day then, this season particularly, after lunch probably means putting some whites on preparing to bat at number 10 or 11!

Rain after lunch means dire boredom is likely to set in if I don’t do one of two things. The only problem is that both things require me to have brought something to the ground that morning, and one of them depends on other people also being keen.

Poker requires me to have a fiver on me and also needs me to generate the interest of members from my own team and, indeed, from the opposition. The great thing about poker is that once there are 4 or 5 interested players it can last a good couple of hours. The downside is that I’ve often lost all my chips after 20 minutes. However, once all the chips have been counted and money added to the pot at the start, it’s still a good time-killer.

The other post-lunch option would be to continue reading the book I am currently engrossed in at home. If I remembered to bring it. The biggest problem here is to find a quiet enough corner or room where none of your ‘mates’ can come over and stick their finger in your ear or throw grapes and the odd cashew nut at you. When boredom reaches these levels, it’s not only yourself you need to worry about…

At this stage of proceedings, if it’s still raining you really hope that the umpires fancy an early finish or use their common sense (the former often the more likely with umpires) and call play off for the day. With any luck, I will get home in time for Deal or No Deal and Friends double bill. I never get bored of them. If it’s really early, Only Fools and Horses is usually on at 3pm.

A Bank Holiday weekend! We have a televised Pro40 match televised on Monday against Warwickshire that I’m not playing in. I might go and watch a bit, or if its cold, I might just flick between it and what is bound to be a ‘Bankers Bank Holiday Bonanza’ edition of Deal or No Deal in the comfort of my own home. They will probably lose the £250,000 in the first round, end up with the 1p and I will turn over to Extreme Make-over: Home Edition after 10 minutes.

Pretty much a whole days rain over the last four days put pay to a result against promotion rivals Glamorgan at the County Ground, Northampton, last week. We lost the toss on a wicket that was doing a lot for the seamers on the first day but an excellent 160 from ex-housemate Steven Peters and some poor bowling from the Glammy boys meant that we made 350, probably 100 runs more than they would have liked. The wicket then turned out to be a very good batting deck as wickets became pretty hard to come by. The game petered out to the inevitable draw and we were able to finish an hour early. In games like this one, teams should be able to shake hands at the tea interval. Both sets of players and the umpires knew where it was heading and the front-line bowlers had stopped bowling shortly after lunch in order to preserve their bodies for the last four matches.

Our draw, along with the draw that Essex had with Leicestershire had, meant that no team has made any progress away from each other in order to get the second promotion place. Currently, Kent look odds-on favourites to be promoted in first place, but a loss by them could still see two other teams snatch the top two places if results go their way.

The Second Division of the County Championship is definitely where the excitement is! Durham look to have all but mathematically won the £350,000 prize money for first place in the First Division which means that if Northants are still in contention come our final game then it could be televised for all four days on Sky Sports. A good opportunity for us to show off our Championship form to the rest of the country.

Competition for places in the bowling department is very strong at the moment. I was rotated in the previous game and Johan Van Der Wath missed the Glamorgan game with illness. Jack Brooks, the newest member of the attack, had another good game this week. He bowled economically without much luck but still picked up two wickets in the game.

Dave Lucas is still our leading wicket-taker, by some distance. So, with Van Der Wath presumably returning for our next fixture against Middlesex at home I guess I might have another unsettled build up wondering if I will get the nod or the dreaded tap on the shoulder with the phrase ‘you’re going to miss out this game I’m afraid, Wiggers’. Time will tell.

I’ve had a frustrating last week! I was ‘rested’ as part of our ‘rotation’ system for the County Championship match against Derbyshire, at Chesterfield. It was frustrating, not only because I had to spend the entire four days filling up water-bottles with different players’ requests and being a general ‘go-fer’, but also because I had to watch a match dominated by seam bowling on a wicket that I would have loved to roll up and take home with me!

However, once my sulking had subsided, I was able to watch the team chalk up another impressive win, although closer than we would have hoped! It put us in a very strong position going into the final 5 games, and promotion in 2nd place is a distinct possibility.

I write this on the eve of our next match which is at home against Glamorgan. I’ve not been so keen for a match in a long while. I am again in the squad of 12 and I have been given the nod to play by the Captain. However, when I wasn’t in the last team, I am never totally sure I’m playing in the next until my name gets placed on the official slip and the coach has signed it off!

I hate not knowing if I am playing or not. It sounds silly, but I often don’t sleep very well, with all the various team possibilities spinning round in my head and what my arguments for discussion might be if I’m not selected. People tell me not to worry about it, but it’s not that easy. It’s not so much worry; more the fact I just like to know what I’m doing the next morning! I like to prepare mentally, as well as physically. I guess it boils down to the fact I like to relax, that is probably my mental preparation. Even when selected, I am a lot more settled once I know how the toss has panned out for us. The 2nd day onwards I am a lot better and can just relax!

After the disappointment of being left out at Chesterfield, all negative emotions were thrown out of the window on Sunday when I watched the national team win back the Ashes!

At 27-years-old, I have played against many of the England squad in seasons past. I enjoyed congratulating Monty on his contribution when I saw him at training this morning, but mostly I enjoyed watching Graeme Swann take the final wicket.

It was such a great moment, and one completely different to 2005. Apart from anything else, the whole team were out on the field together and had to win the match to win the Ashes. In 2005, the team took the field together in the final session, having already won the series, and simply had to complete the formalities in what was a certain draw for the last 2 hours of the game. There was Kevin Pieterson’s very special century, but there was no huge climax which saw 11 playing swamping each other.

Also, the 2005 team was very much a tale of the walking wounded with Flintoff, (who was lucky enough to make a comeback), Ashley Giles, Simon Jones and Michael Vaughan (who are all either retired, or were never quite the same), all collapsing physically after an extremely demanding series.

This team, Flintoff aside, are young and fresh. They have still a lot of progress to make individually, but they will take so much confidence from this series win. Andrew Strauss is lucky to be able to take this team on and work with them. The 2005 Ashes was a product of several years’ hard work, and finished the story off nicely. The 2009 Ashes, you feel, is just the start.