MATCH FACTS

April 11-13
Fenners (Cambridge)
Start time: 11.00 am
Teams: TBA
Ground Guide Link
Weather Link

"Start delayed due to rain." Sometimes I wonder why we persist in starting the season in early April.

Yorkshire (from): Rudolph, Sayers, McGrath, Gale, Lyth, Brophy, Hodgson, Wainwright, Shahzad, Patterson, Hoggard, Rafiq.

Three questions?

When does Rana come back into the side? What ever happened to playing in some of the pre-season friendlies and tournaments so the captain and coach can gauge your fitness and form? Why did we sign this man?

So our last pair will need only a couple of runs to keep up with 2008's tenth v. first wicket advantage. Interesting.

are Yorkshire trying to piss us off. We lose our first wicket for lesss than 50 runs again. I would have thought Martin would have bought some one half decent who could get our inning going. 20-1.

83-4 McGrath is in great touch and sayers isnt doing bad either should be a good game.

in the last few overs, but Sayers currently being outscored marginally by Extras (22 to 23). Perhaps he is back to his form of 2007!

Sayers form from 2007 would see us stay in the 1st division. And as I've just said on another thread, Rudolph is no opener. Out for 1.

A pretty good recovery considering the early losses. Hopefully, the Rudolph as opener experiment will be shelved along with other failed ventures such as do-it-yourself open heart surgery, MIck Jagger singing disco music, or Kevin Pietersen as England captain.

Does this match have first class status? I'm assuming it does since it was scheduled over three days.

Great to ee our bowlers are in form. McGrath 2-2 in 2 overs!!!!

Saturday was miserable ... but it was only 'wet' a combination of fine, drizzle & rain. The main problem was that the covers had leakd to they moved pitches ...which meant the run ups were wet ... thnkfully they called it off around 2:30 as everyibe was fed up.

Sunday was overcast but dry. They said the run ups were a bit damp .. but we started on time. Te opening bowlers Braithwaite & Woolley were 'decent' but bowled too many no balls. Rudolph was 'done' by a good away swinger. Batting wasn't easy .. but we progressed well, although it must be said that some of the back up bowlers were 'poor' .. Rosenburg did look up to the mark. Gale was unlucky being virtually torpedoed by the ball from Lotay that had him plum lbw. It got rather dark after tea ...they would have been off around a hour earlier in a championship game ... but finally gave up the ghost at 5:15 ... Patterson must have night vision as he looked in no trouble

I think we have to hope that Hoggard's chest cold clears up before the serious action starts. It sounded quite bad towards the end of the day, though he had been sledging all afternoon (ineffectively against Lee, but more entertainingly against David Wainwright - "Stop wetting it. It makes the seam go soft."). Hodgson seems to have a nice compact action and Shahzad beat the outside edge a lot, but Patterson currently looks more dangerous, seeming to find a way to take wickets, as he often did last season.
Can't get used to Fenner's with an electronic scoreboard! I'm sure that wasn't there in 1976.

Electricity only reached Cambridge in the late 80's. Before that they relied on steam.

AND they'd built another accommodation block where I used to park my bike! O tempora o mores (Oh Times, Oh Daily Mirror).

Gilzean - to answer your question above: yes, the UCCE matches are considered 1st Class.