A press release! For us!

Hilariously, we've been sent a press release, just like a proper cricket news place. Here's what it is:

We don't really understand much of the accompanying bumpf, even though it hasn't got too many misplaced apostrophes and is therefore of quite a high grammatical standard for a press release. Essentially the MCC Museum has joined forces with Bletchley Park Post Office to produce a series of "postal covers". They don't deign to explain what a postal cover is, but in the spirit of investigative journalism we've found out. This is what Bletchley Park Post Office's website says about them:

"The term 'cover' originates from the early coverings used to protect documents during transit, silk, or oiled cloth being replaced by the more convenient paper envelope.

A first day cover is basically an envelope where the postage stamps have been cancelled on their first day of issue."

That doesn't really make things any clearer for us, but if you want to buy whatever it is, go to www.bletchleycovers.com.

If anyone else has got a press release about cricket, please send it. We'll be baffled and probably ridicule your product, but you'll get a whole post just for yourself.

Michael Vaughan's recovery - stupid knee

We're getting more and more frustrated with Michael Vaughan's knee. Just imagine how Vaughan himself must feel. It's the not-knowing that's the worst part. You injure your knee. You have it operated on. It isn't much better. It's operated on again. Seems okay. No it's not. Another operation and then the same thing again.

Now Vaughan's on his third operation. This one's pretty major and he'll be out of action for four to six months. All the poor man wants to do is play cricket.

It's like when you get a really good Transformer for Christmas - let's say it's Skids (pictured). Skids is a theoritician. We want to be a theoritician when we grow up. Anyway, you get Skids for Christmas and then on Boxing day you tread on him and you break his head. How do you feel? You've spent so long waiting for this day and now all you've dreamed of has been whisked away by a cruel twist of fate. It's absolutely gutting, isn't it? This is what's happening to Michael Vaughan.

Poor Vaughany sitting there cradling an Autobot called Skids which has a broken head (metaphorically speaking).

Twenty20 batting and bowling

We don't know how to cover Twenty20 matches. Any ideas?

Batsmen routinely score at more than a run a ball and bowlers only get four overs to make an impact. It's hard to find an angle. There's the whole 'look at this new fangled version of the game that's ruining/rejuvenating county cricket' approach, but that's getting to be a bit old hat. Twenty20's been around for a couple of years now.

You might point out that players' performances seem to be the least of our concerns, but even our Rob Key thing only grew from the seeds of his great batting. Maybe we'll do a Twenty20 Performance of the Day feature. We can pick someone, get it wrong and you can all berate us. Then we can feel small and apologetic and start putting the Performance of the Day to a vote. None of you will vote, we'll get annoyed and start laying into some poor innocent cricketer to vent our frustration. At least we'll have something to write.

We're in favour of Twenty20, by the way. It's undeniably entertaining, has a wider appeal and gives players an opportunity to innovate.

We just spent an inordinate amount of time trying to remember the word 'innovate' (it's a bit early in the morning for us to think). It made us realise how useful a word 'innovate' is though. There are no real synonyms. Let's drink to 'innovate'... or something...

Right, I'm making a brew. I can't carry on like this.

Rob Key again captains England A

The stage is set. Rob Key will be on his home turf and he'll be playing against international opposition again. We're a little bit disconcerted that the match isn't taking place RIGHT NOW THIS MINUTE, but we'll get over that feeling when the match does start on July the 6th.

Also included are one-day surprises Tim Bresnan, Jamie Dalrymple and Alex Loudon, as well as strike bowler, Matthew Hoggard.

England A games are great. They offer loads of intrigue. Plus they always seem to have Rob Key in them at the moment. There's no sporting occasion that couldn't be improved by the presence of Rob Key.

Rob Key posts:
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24 hours around the cricket

9am - Catch bus.

9.15am - Alight from bus and start walking down our special shortcut to Old Trafford.

9.30am - Remember that our 'special shortcut' was actually a shortcut from where we used to live and not from the bus stop. We've actually added distance to our journey.

9.40am - Arrive at ground.

11am - We don't really know several of the people we're sitting with. They go and get beer. It seems early.

11.15am - The people seem keen to get more beer. We start to feel under pressure. If it weren't for the relaxing properties of the beer, we'd probably be having a panic attack about now.

11.30am - The bulbous pint-glass bottom situation comes to light, as the first drink is spilt. This will be a theme for the day.

1pm - We start a beer-glass worm. When we say 'we', we in fact mean the people we're with, together with the row of people in front of us. We provide some glasses though. We feel that we were there at The Worm's inception.

3pm - A large cheer greets the joining of The Worm with a relative.

3.30pm - The Worm is dismantled by a steward. Our dreams of a beer-glass boundary rope are quashed.

6.30pm - The match finishes and we walk over to the grocers to buy some coriander.

6.40pm - The shopkeeper refuses to let us in on "the secret" to growing coriander well. He appeases us by telling us that it just grows better in Pakistan and places.

6.45pm - As we leave the shop the shopkeeper reveals that the thick, lush coriander we have bought was grown in Manchester. We reach a tentative agreement that he will reveal "the secret" the next time we purchase coriander.

9pm - We are at home. We start to get a hangover, which is very disconcerting at this hour.

9.30pm - We fall asleep on the settee.

10pm - We fall asleep on the bed, but in our clothes.

3am - We awake to find that the Beer Badger has already visited. In addition to taking all of our money and doing something in our mouth, the Beer Badger has brought a profound sense of our own worthlessness which is quite astounding in its clarity.

4am - Curse the Beer Badger for his work as it is denying us the sleep that we so desperately need.

8.30am - Arrive at work and check the clock for what is likely to be a very, very, very, very long day.

Note: The picture depicts an occasion when Mark Richardson of New Zealand hit the ball into the crowd and it landed in someone's beer. We thought it was an apt photo.

ODI at Old Trafford, England v Sri Lanka

We're going to the one-dayer between England and Sri Lanka at Old Trafford tomorrow. Here's what will happen:

- We'll struggle to get to the ground via a complex series of bus journeys.
- It'll rain.
- England will either post a mediocre total and watch Sri Lanka tear it down to size in the first 15 overs OR Sri Lanka will post a decent total and England will slip further and further behind the run-rate.
- England supporters will hold out hope for a career-defining performance from one of the England players until we can't kid ourselves any more. At that point we'll concentrate on the drinking.
- Everyone will get drunk.

We might write something about it, but don't hold out any hope. Any chance of a first day of the cricket season-style photo diary will be washed away in a sea of shandies. (We won't really be drinking shandy - it's just a turn-of-phrase.)

Bilal Shafayat - half-term report

Bilal Shafayat's going all right. He's hit two hundreds and is averaging 41.75. We feel proud of Bilal Shafayat. Bilal Shafayat's our guy.

We don't really have any advice for Bilal Shafayat either. We were thinking of squashing his photo vertically to make him look even shorter to make up for the fact that we don't even have any Bilal Shafayat jokes.

Why do we always end these things with a rubbish post, so that it's the first one that anyone sees when they visit the site?

Verdict: B
Score more runs. Gain the ability to be Rob Key.

Mark Butcher - half-term report

Mark Butcher's not finished yet. We feel mighty sorry for Mark Butcher. Very few sportsmen's careers come to an end as they would wish, but Mark Butcher had been getting better and better for years when a series of injuries whisked away his England spot.

He's averaging 51.15 so far in the County Championship and has hit two hundreds.

Verdict: B+
Should probably try being a little bit younger. He's definitely missing a trick there.

Will Jefferson - half-term report

Will Jefferson's been injured all season. He's probably having trouble getting blood up to his head.

Actually he damaged tendons in his left wrist trying to open a hotel window. We don't laugh at freakish injuries because it's the kind of thing that happens to us. Having said that, one of our friends managed to give himself a massive cut round his eye and pretty much knock himself out taking off a jumper. We struggle to avoid laughing at that.

Verdict: U
Must play a little bit of cricket at some point.

Rob Key - half-term report

It's been a simply awesome season for Rob Key so far. While he's averaged only 28.9 with the bat, he has been Rob Key for every single match so far. You can't argue with class like that. We're staggered that no other player has managed to be Rob Key for even a second. That's the talent this man has. He's on another level. He's not on Another Level though - that would be hideous.

Maybe he could start scoring some hundreds now though. That would be most welcome.

Verdict: A+
It's a good job he didn't bat well or we'd have had to invent some sort of uber-grade.

Rob Key posts:
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Tom Smith - half-term report

We're sick of using that picture of Tom Smith, but he's got such a boring name it's hard to find pictures of him. If you've got one will you send it to us?

Tom Smith has faded a bit since the start of the season. We still don't know whether he's 'brisk', 'lively' or 'bowls a heavy ball' either. He's very enigmatic. We should give him points for that alone, even though we're not using a points system and are in fact just plucking grades out of the air with very little consideration.

In the spirit of that:

Verdict: B-
Encouraging and enigmatic. We haven't seen much of his batsmanship, which is rumoured to be quite tidy.

Sajid Mahmood - half-term report

Sajid Mahmood's England matches have been a mixed bag. After a pretty persuasive Test debut, he fell away a bit and was dropped for the third Test. In the one-dayers he's mostly been bowling wides down the leg side. He's not the only one, but that doesn't really defend it.

In first-class cricket this season he's taken 17 wickets at just 18.47. That's good enough.

Verdict: B
Let's be generous and say that leg side wides are a tactic.

Matt Prior - half-term report

We didn't even remember that Matt Prior was one of our Ones To Watch. He is though. We write about Matt Prior much more than we think. We're not really sure why.

He's averaging 42.88 at the midway point and has hit one hundred. Not bad, but having had an England chance and pretty much wasted it, he needs to do more.

We still think he's one for the future and he's maintaining decent form.

Verdict: B
Needs to catch the eye more. Maybe he could bat while on fire or something.

Mark Davies - half-term report

Mark Davies is in his usual position, topping the bowling averages. Mark Davies is currently averaging nine with the ball. That's incredible. That's just about the best average there's ever been.

True he's only played one match and only taken one wicket, but don't steal his thunder. He is Norse, after all. He's probably got a Thor hotline so he can get thunder whenever he wants it, so the joke's on you if you try and steal his thunder.

Verdict: A+
Keep up the insanely good work. Maybe try and get a second wicket.

Graeme Swann - half-term report

Graeme Swann's batting average is 31.77, which is all right. His bowling average is 48.66, which is hopeless.

Being as he's a spin bowler, things could pick up for him later in the season as the pitches get drier, but we're not anticipating great things any more. Graeme Swann's been bumbling around at this level for a while now. We're losing confidence that he's going to improve. Having said that, spinners often mature later and can usually play longer. That's not much good for this season though.

Verdict: D
You're letting yourself down, Graeme. But worse than that: You're letting us down. We know that you don't know us and even if you did, we'd be really nervous and polite and servile, but you really should consider us when you act this way.

We're busy - how can we skive?

We've actually got work to do at the moment. It's not good for King Cricket.

We reckon cricket fans are quite workshy. You've got to be fairly laid-back/lazy to devote so much free time to a leisure pursuit. Has anyone got any good techniques for helping us sidestep the work we're paid to do, thus freeing us up to write childish things about cricket?

And if anyone thinks that we don't need any advice because we're writing this while we should be working, they're wrong. You can NEVER have too many ploys for slacking off.

Ones To Watch half-term report cards

With the County Championship about to make way for Twenty20 for a couple of weeks, we've decided to take a look at each of our Ones To Watch to see how they're getting on. We'll do it in no particular order and at no particular times over the next couple of days. There's be links below as they appear.

Graeme Swann
Mark Davies
Matt Prior
Sajid Mahmood
Tom Smith
Rob Key
Will Jefferson
Mark Butcher
Bilal Shafayat

We're sorry Mark Ramprakash

Mark Ramprakash yesterday hit is thirty-third hundred of the week. We bad-mouthed Mark Ramprakash in the post that's linked through his name. We were a little unfair. He's a really good batsman.

Sorry Mark. We were probably just having a bad day. Probably our boss threatened to break our kneecaps again and we impotently took it out on you.

We didn't 'impotently take it out' in the sense that some of you are thinking. Sure, Mark's a looker. But no - we don't do that sort of thing.

Andy Bichel - a bang-up guy

Some of you may be aware that we're really good mates with World Cup winner, Andy Bichel. We're delighted to announce that World Cup winner, Andy Bichel took 6-38 against Derbyshire yesterday.

We've nothing more to add to that other than that World Cup winner, Andy Bichel, is what we call 'a bang-up guy'. It's been pointed out to us that 'bang-up guy' doesn't mean anything and is merely a mish-mash of other phrases. We acknowledge this and continue to use it regardless.

Well done World Cup winner, Andy Bichel. You're a bang-up guy.

Northamptonshire follow-on and then some

There's following-on and there's following-on. Worcestershire declared on 543-9, which contained Phil Jaques's double hundred and also Graeme Hick's 100th hundred for Worcestershire. In response, Northamptonshire were bowled out for 67.

That's got to be about as demoralising as our working life. As we survey all the boxes and familiar ugly, ugly faces, we can identify with Northamptonshire's state of mind. But unlike in life, there's a second innings and our man Bilal Shafayat is currently on 46 not out.

The chief architect of Northamptonshire's destruction (architect's are by nature creative - is it not a bit backwards to talk about 'creating destruction'?) was Zaheer Khan, who seems to be in a bad mood about something - probably the whole 'being dropped from the Indian team' thing. Following on from nine wickets in the last match, he took 5-27. One of his wickets was Ganguly, who he bowled. We can't remember if they're mates or not. We kind of assume that they're not because everyone seems to hate Ganguly, but we haven't checked that.

Cricket video games

Yes, it's one of those posts that's just us sorting out our sidebar. You can't hold it against us though. Look at it. What's that section 'lengthier articles that are borderline serious'? That's essentially pointing out the two least desirable features of those posts and trying to make them plus points. We're deluded.

Buy games

International Cricket Captain 2007 (PC)

Cricket 07 (PS2)

Cricket 07 (PC DVD)

Brian Lara Cricket 2007 (PS2)

Brian Lara Cricket 2007 (Xbox 360)

International Cricket Captain 2006 (PC CD)

Marcus Trescothick's Cricket Coach (PC)
This post unsurprisingly gathers together the posts from our Cricket Game Day a while back.

Cricket Captain 3
Test Match Cricket - the tabletop game
International Cricket Captain
International Cricket captain 2006
Marcus Trescothick's Cricket Coach
Graham Gooch's All Star Cricket
EA Cricket 2005
EA Cricket 2007
Cricket Life 2007
Robin Smith's International Cricket
Brian Lara's International Cricket 2007
ConnecTV Cricket

Phil Jaques wants to play for Australia

Phil Jaques scored a double hundred in his last game and he scored one yesterday too: 202 off 294 balls. Having been immediately dropped after making Australia's highest one-day international innings on debut, Jaques knows he has to keep making an impact. So he is doing.

'Treat 'em mean, keep 'em keen,' is the motto of Australia's selectors when dealing with up-and-coming batsmen. If we were an Australian selector we'd make a list of all the batsmen eligible for the side and then work our way down it until we finally got to someone who wasn't Test standard. It would take a while. We'd carry on working our way down the list even after we'd reached batsmen who weren't up to standard. It would be an unwise decision to employ us as an Australian selector.

Phil Jaques was averaging 89.87 in the County Championship before this game, so now he's topped 100. Bizarrely, that's less than Darren Gough who is currently averaging 114 after three innings (two not outs). Remember when Darren Gough was the next Ian Botham? That was a LONG time ago.

Mark Davies is back

Everyone's favourite Viking Mark Davies is playing cricket again. He's been injured since about the time of the Spanish armada. Now we're just waiting on Will Jefferson of our Ones To Watch. You've won the being injured competition, Will. You can come back now.

Mark Davies took 1-9 off eight overs. That's a fairly typical Mark Davies performance in that it's quite striking in a way (economical and wickets for not much) but not that striking in any newsworthy kind of way. The Vikings wouldn't be proud of that. They liked burning stuff.

As with the previous post King Cricket's still down as we write this, which pretty much confirms our belief that we'd write King Cricket even if no-one were reading it - even ourself.

Busted King Cricket

As we write, King Cricket's still down. We probably did something, but we don't know what. Here's a list of things that we can't do:

Computers
Science
Social interaction
What we're told
Joining in

We hate 'joining in' most of all. It's always something that you never want to do. "Come on. Join in," they say.

"No," we say.

More Rob Key

That could very well be our slogan, but in fact it isn't a chant or a request - just a statement.

Rob Key hit 89 off 92 balls against Essex. He was batting at number five, rather than opening as he normally does. He's obviously spied England's papier maché one-day middle order and fancies a piece of the action. England could do a lot worse and what side wouldn't benefit from Rob's panther-like skills in the field?

It's all pointing to an upturn in form anyway. He's not "in the zone" yet, but he can see the zone and he's on his way. There don't seem to be any barriers or guards or anything, so expect Rob Key to arrive "in the zone" some time in the next couple of weeks.

We can't wait until Rob's "in the zone". He'll be producing beams of multi-coloured light and flying through the air and there'll be loud music that kind of sounds like powerful rock music performed by a herd of angels. Everyone will be gasping and admiring him except the bowlers who will be cowering behind the stumps in FEAR. David Graveney and Duncan Fletcher will come and kneel at his feet, offer him some ruby-encrusted slippers by way of appeasement and usher him back into the England squad.

Rob Key will reward the selectors' faith with a doughty forty-something in the first Test against Pakistan.

Rob Key posts:
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Great news for weekend readers

Some of you may have noticed that we're not writing a great deal at the weekends. We're actually writing nothing. This is because our new house isn't yet connected to the outside world. It's almost like we're doing a normal working week and then taking a break at the weekend. This is ironic, because in our actual working week, we barely lift a finger.

Well great news anyway. Our internet ills should end on Tuesday, so there'll be weekend posting and ill-advised evening posting when we haven't got anything to do and write something just for the sake of it.

And yes, we know that picture of a phone lead is a bit dated. Doubtless you're all on wireless connections in your eco-homes in the clouds, but we're not. Our PC makes a noise like a juggernaut when you turn it on which only abates after a couple of minutes. It's at that point that you notice all the grinding noises. Computers shouldn't grind, should they? They really shouldn't.

Let's say it was Upul Tharanga and not the wides

There's a sense of inevitability about England one-day losses at the moment. You don't know quite how they're going to lose, but they will. They might get themselves in a good position and lose. They might let the game get away from them early on. They'll definitely lose though.

On Saturday, Sri Lanka's batting was pretty ordinary with the exception of Upul Tharanga who hit 120 off 156 balls. He started brightly and got kind of bogged down later in his innings, but his contribution dwarfed that of any of his team mates. There's a case to say that he piled pressure on incoming batsmen by scoring slowly late on, but let's not go down that road.

England lost the game by 20 runs and bowled 21 more wides than Sri Lanka, so there's something to work on for a start. We've nothing else to add really.

Debutant verdicts:

Jamie Dalrymple: Pretty good
Tim Bresnan: Sort of all right

Charlie Shreck takes some wickets for not much

Charlie Shreck was born in Cornwall and doesn't it show? Look at him. Look at his Cornish face. Look at his Cornish hair.

Think he's a genial coastal type at your peril though. He took 8-31 against Middlesex and only one batsman reached double figures.

Zaheer Khan - ten wickets in an innings?

Will Zaheer Khan manage to get ten wickets in an innings later today? He's got nine so far and he's reduced Essex to 186-9. If ever a man was spurred into action by his omission from a Test squad. Zaheer Khan was already the top wicket-taker in the second division even before this match.

We sometimes idly speculate that India's pacemen are unfairly vilified because they do a lot of bowling on unfavourable pitches, but the public don't acknowledge this. When a seeming innocuoso like Zaheer Khan comes over and starts taking bucketloads of wickets, this seems to back that up. Javagal Srinath did the same at the tail-end of his career. Srinath had a decent, if unexceptional career record, but he cleaned up batsmen left, right and centre. If he'd bowled for another nation maybe his average would have been lower and we'd have talked of him in tones more awed than respectful.

We sometimes idly speculate that England's spinners are unfarily vilified because they do a lot of bowling on unfavourable pitches, but then we watch them bowl and they're clearly garbage. Except Monty Panesar. He's ace.