In my opinion, the argument about the number of Yorkshire players missing due to international duty doesn't hold water when you take into account that it was the same for the 2 seasons they did win the title and Willey was still a Northants player during those 2 years. Balance and Willey played in that match at Lord's, and Plunkett's absence was due to injury, nothing to do with the ECB. Finn didn't exactly blow Yorkshire away with match figures of 4-165 and Morgan was told he could play and decided not to.
I think it does. They also had their overseas players, first Lehmann then Head recalled and so played a series of games with only 4 specialist batsmen. I did watch every day of every game at the Ageas Bowl and so saw all the counties bat and bowl. I'm not knocking Middlesex...I played Middlesex League cricket amongst others after all...but they were fortunate to win it.
I think that a bigger result was when Middlesex beat Yorkshire by an innings and 4 runs at Scarborough as it meant that the confidence was there for them to remain contenders. They were leading the table in 2015 when the limited overs competitions started, and the poor form from those was taken into the County Championship. If it hadn't been for that good start, it could've been Division 2 cricket at Lord's this year so before the season started I would've been happy with a top 4 finish and I think the same for next year.
A double wow!! Bangladesh giving the Kiwis a hard time in Wellington... http://www.espncricinfo.com/new-zea.../engine/current/match/1019985.html?CMP=chrome And Scotland win a game of cricket... http://www.espncricinfo.com/desert-t20-challenge/engine/current/match/1074957.html?CMP=chrome
Williamson is NZ's main man - don't get him out quickly and your in trouble. Bit like India with Kohli - we were doing ok till he got going!
I think it was their bowlers who got them into trouble early on - Bangladesh's 360 run partnership for the fifth wicket was entirely out of the ordinary.
Murray blew it - and after Djokovic had gone too !! Yes - face saving win in ODI Tidy win for your guys yesterday Dave - hopefully they can get their confidence back - they are not so far off the play offs
Thanks Leo, trouble is we usually follow up a good win with a surprising loss. I hope we've turned a corner! I was disappointed that you let smug-faced Howe back twice. I really do not like that man or his team!
The Head Office for the company I work for is in Boston, so it might be rather interesting in there on Feb 6th if the Patriots win the Super Bowl again, although one of our other offices is in Atlanta.
Usain Bolt has lost one of his 9 Gold medals He will have to hand back one of his nine Olympic gold medals after Jamaican team-mate Nesta Carter tested positive for a banned substance.Carter was part of the Jamaican quartet that won the 4x100m in Beijing in 2008. His was one of 454 selected doping samples retested by the International Olympic Committee (IOC) last year, and has been found to contain the banned stimulant methylhexaneamine. Bolt, 30, completed an unprecedented 'triple triple' in Rio last summer.
If any of you are cricket umpires, please could you answer a question? In the SA v SL T20, the SL batsman facing the penultimate ball hit it over the keeper for 4, then pulled a stump out of the ground in celebration thinking that those were the winning runs, but it only made the scores level. The ball had not reached the boundary, so was still in play, so should the batsman been given out (possibly hit wicket)? I think that was what SA captain Farhaan Behardien was querying with the umpire, who didn't want to know.
Picked this answer up earlier from ESPNCricinfo site - ... according to the Laws. Gunaratne had already finished his stroke, so therefore it's equivalent to a batsman crashing into the stumps trying to complete a run (which wouldn't be out, of course). He didn't hit his wicket "either (i) in the course of any action taken by him in preparing to receive or in receiving a delivery, or (ii) in setting off for his first run immediately after playing or playing at the ball". Bit of a daft thing to do but the umpires, as far as I can see, correctly put the stumps back and told them to get on with it.