County cricket news
Alex Loudon retires from cricket
At the age of 27. Uninjured.
This is why we shouldn’t allow Old Etonians to become professional cricketers. What kind of a person gives up professional cricket in favour of ‘a career in business’?
Well congratulations, Alex. You’ll be shaking hands with people for a living before you know it. You can spend the next 30-odd years staring at spreadsheets and having meetings.
You can buy a pointless grey car and put your frigging golf clubs in the back. You can get a Mont Blanc pen and tell people about how you’ve got a Mont Blanc pen, watching their eyes glaze over before you’ve even finished the word ‘Blanc’.
You can go to bars with your mates, drink terrible alcohol at inflated prices and talk about how you can drive from one miserable office full of idiots to a different miserable office full of idiots faster than they can, learning to distinguish between different pointless grey cars in the process.
We’re sure you’ll cheer just as enthusiastically when you get that all-important third quarter contract as you did when you clean-bowled someone in a vital match. We’re sure the guys in Human Resources will give you just as much of an ovation as when you single-handedly won a cup match in front of a sell-out crowd.
It’s probably not necessary to tell you that I’m not particularly happy with Alex Loudon right at this minute.
9 AppealsRikki Clarke joins Derbyshire as captain
In the county cricket club fashion stakes, Derbyshire languish somewhere near the bottom. Whenever anyone needs to depict the mundane, life’s-going-on-elsewhere nature of early-season County Championship matches, they always pick on Derbyshire.
That’s unfair in much the same way as ‘it rains in Manchester’ jibes are. The whole bloody island’s wet. And as far as playing at Derby in May’s concerned, all early-season County Championship matches are as maudlin as off-season Sundays in Redcar.
It’s like comparing The Cheeky Girls’ respective appearances. Consider the bigger picture. They’re both incredibly close together; way, way down near the bottom of the hierarchy, in the section marked ‘faces like busted frogs’.
Anyway, we’re still slightly surprised that Rikki Clarke‘s leaving Surrey for Derbyshire. If there were a trendy county – and there isn’t – it’d be Surrey (or maybe Hampshire) and as we said, Derbyshire are, er, not cool.
Rikki’s going to be captain though. He doubtless thinks it’ll help his England chances in the same way that it helped Rob Key’s. Eh? Oh.
1 AppealSussex win the County Championship
Sussex success. Lancashire disappointment. The County Championship ends in displeasingly familiar fashion.
We’re not really that bothered though. Sussex are a great side. There’s Robin Martin-Jenkins, the handiest county player imaginable. A man who’s never going to get picked for England yet merrily scores fifties and chips in with wickets as regularly as we hit our shin against the foot of the bed when walking past it.
There’s Chris Adams who alternates between looking like an utterly crap amateur and brutalising bowling for robust hundreds.
And then there’s Mushy. Mushtaq Ahmed is a bowler who takes vast quantities of wickets so consistently that we can happily point you towards three posts we wrote last year instead of creating something new. They seem just as applicable now as they did then. The man’s relentless. Age shall not weary him.
2 AppealsMark Ramprakash’s Bradmania
This is Grimlock. He’s a dinosaur who is also a robot. It literally doesn’t get any better than that.
At the end of last season, we hypothesised that Mark Ramprakash had been spurred into overachievement by a promise from his father. We thought that maybe Mark’s dad had said he would get Galvatron for Mark if he passed 2,000 runs during the season – 2,000 runs being a ludicrous amount, ensuring that Mark’s dad wouldn’t have to part with any cash.
Unfortunately for Mark’s dad, Mark managed 2,278 runs at an average of 103.54. We urged Mark to try for Grimlock this year. Mark scored 2,026 runs at an average of 101.30, so while he’s clearly on the slide, Grimlock’s in the bag.
The man’s a genius. That’s not going to stop us from smashing Grimlock when he’s not looking though, because his last two hundreds have deprived Lancashire of the County Championship.
3 AppealsRob Key hits a Pro40 hundred against Glamorgan
Rob Key‘s 91 ball 107 not out happened 12 days ago. It’s taken us this long to find a prominent expert to comment on the innings.
If you’re thinking: ‘Oh no. Not this joke again. This is getting really tired,’ then stop to consider how successful that means Rob Key’s season must have been. And yes, originally it was a joke. We know it seems unlikely now you’ve heard it 50 times. Anyway, on with the “joke”.
One prominent expert was moved to comment:
“That boy’s hundred was the fastest ever in any form of cricket, if I’m not much mistaken. It was also the most runs scored by an individual batsman in any kind of match.
“If I had a pound for every record that ruby-jowled pup broke today I’d be eating foie gras for every meal. At least I would if I didn’t find its production abhorrent and its taste repugnant.
“Perhaps I could treat that man-ball to a serving of his favourite foodstuff. He deserves no less.”
AppealRob Key fined for throwing bat in Twenty20 final
We thought it was a hissy fit of poise and dignity.
If anything, it’s the ECB who should be fined – fined for crimes against perfection. Whatever that might mean.
Luckily Rob mastered alchemy years ago and makes his own gold.
1 AppealRob Key hits 182 against Lancashire
Rob’s now hit 1130 first-class runs this season at an average of 59.47.
After last season’s aberration (he was recovering from shoulder surgery) Rob’s back on track. Now seems a good time to fill you in on The Origin Of Rob Key.
Just over a score and eight years ago, southern England was buffetted by minor geological disturbance. It barely registered as a blip on most seismometers, but this minor tremor in 1979 would eventually rock the entire world.
One of the side-effects of this tectonic fidgetting was that a very, very small volcano erupted in East Dulwich. This was a special volcano. Instead of producing lava, it spewed only the purest unobtainium.
The unobtainium became instantly solid on contact with the earth’s atmosphere. Over the coming days, the elements would ravage it into an unexpected form – the form of a man. On the seventh day it was struck by lightning, giving it life. Lo, Robert William Trevor Key (favourite band, The Fratellis; favourite food, Chinese; favourite TV show; The Office) was born.
7 AppealsPhil Mustard scores runs quickly
It’s often said that Philip Mustard is a headline writer’s dream. He’s a nicknamer’s dream as well. The Durham players call him ‘The Colonel’ for obvious reasons.
With so many options at our disposal however, it would be lazy of us to use someone else’s creation. That’s why, after an hour of thinking, we’ve come up with a masterpiece. A nickname of such sophistication that you’ll all wish you’d thought of it first.
Mustardo has been catching the eye a bit this season. England are always on the lookout for a wicketkeeper who can bat and particularly one who can open the batting in one-day internationals.
So far this season, Mustardo’s hit a hundred and three fifties in the Friends Provident Trophy, averaging 43.5 and a further three fifties in the Pro40 league where he’s averaging 55.6. He’s scored these runs at a ferocious rate, which has what’s caught the eye the most.
Mustardo made his biggest mark in the final of the Friends Provident Trophy a week ago, hitting 49 off 38 balls and he’s keeping himself in the public eye (ooh, mustard in the eye) following a rambunctious 78 off only 40 balls against Leicestershire yesterday.
5 AppealsRob Key hits 125 against Worcestershire
After one-day hundreds versus Surrey and Derbyshire and County Championship hundreds against Durham, Hampshire and Warwickshire, you’d think we’d be running out of things to say about how great Rob Key is.
Good job we hit upon that idea of asking prominent experts for their opinions after each of his innings, eh?
“This young chap ought to be handed the keys to the throne of Englandshire, he batted with such assured forthrightnessdom.
“At one stage, I felt a splash on my shoe and noticed that my ice-cream had melted in my hand. I’d been so absorbed by this rappscallion’s ornate stroke-making I’d completely forgotten to lick it.
“If there’s a man alive who could resist the beautifical charmingism of his back foot play, I’d like to punch them square on the nose. For they are a luddite of the highest order and ought to be shot for their disappreciationalism.
“Any form of disappreciationalism makes me sick with rage.”
He’s a very old prominent expert. And a mental one.
2 AppealsStuart Broad to join ‘ones to watch’ at Nottinghamshire
Here’s a short list of some of our ones to watch over the last couple of years:
What do you notice? That’s right. All of them have moved to Nottinghamshire since we identified them, albeit only on loan in Mark Davies’ case.
What’s going on? Are the Nottinghamshire management using King Cricket in some form of unofficial consultancy capacity? Don’t do that. We don’t support you. We support Lancashire.
That does it. Next year we’re going to name Ajit Agarkar as an excellent potential overseas signing. How d’you like them apples, Nottinghamshire? Eh? Eh? How d’you like that, we said? Yeah, we’re talking to you.
5 Appeals
