Mushtaq Ahmed takes lots of wickets

Mushtaq Ahmed's great isn't he? Stumbling in with all the eagerness of a slightly simple dog; screaming his appeals like a slightly simple dog; and working out the batsman's weaknesses like the biggest supercomputer in the world. Plus he's got a beard. We're a fan of Mushtaq Ahmed's, make no mistake. We're led to believe that he's a nice bloke as well, but we'd think that Mushtaq Ahmed was nice whether we'd heard that or not.

There was a strange sort of a match between Durham and Sussex yesterday. Sussex won by an innings and 39 runs having only managed 229 in their one innings. Durham were bowled out for 110 in their first innings and then, having reached 47 without loss in their second innings, fell to 80 all out.

It was pretty damp weather yesterday, so your first thought would be that it was perfect weather for swing and seam, but that wasn't it. Steve Harmison may have proved his form with 4-43 during Sussex's innings and Rana Naved-ul-Hasan, who we were embiggening a couple of days ago, may have taken nine wickets in the match, but it was Mushtaq Ahmed's day - as it so often is.

He took three wickets in an over to presage Durham's second innings collapse and finished with match figures of 10-37. It's probably fair to say that Durham's batsmen didn't get the measure of him. Not many do. We could probably take the trouble to find out how many wickets he's taken in county cricket and at what average, but we all know how good Mushtaq Ahmed is without statistics, don't we?

Mushtaq Ahmed is as good as buying the wrong type of beer only to find that you prefer your accidental selection.