The Denly injury yesterday appears to have caused some teams to review the pre match ritual of kicking a football around. Sounds like yesterdays was a complete accident and not malicious etc but I have seen Yorkshire also play football in the pre-match warm up and wondered if some sort of cricket related warm up to get the 'blood flowing' as Strauss calls it might be better.

We used to play a game to warm up as well as practice fielding where 2 teams took one half the pitch each and the idea was to try and get the cricket ball past the other teams goal line on the ground - good for team spirit, cricket related, gets the blood flowing and less likely to cause injuries. The defending team tried to stop the ball and then attacked the other teams line with an underarm throw from the position they stopped the ball. Not sure I have explained it too well but it would be good for Yorkshire to try out as it may improve our fielding as well!

be interesting to see if the England Football team warm up with a bit of cricket tomorrow afternoon...

I watched the farcical football warm ups of the England team in the Caribbean and thought that some practice for running between the wickets and fielding warm ups would have much more useful - just as we did in the good old days!

Watching Bopara and Shah running between the wickets reminds me of primary school children - not running the first run quickly, turning to watch the ball, poor calling and generally having no real perception of running quick singles. Forget the stupidity of football warm ups and focus on the skills of the game they are paid for!

The whole "fitness culture" (for want of a better description) which has come to surround cricket makes the professional players look less professional rather than more so.