So, are you all ready for the slog guys? Hopefully we are all ready for Twenty20 at a packed County Ground as new boy Cameron White strides out to a 160 pitch!
Okay, you’re drinking watered-down beer in drizzle at four quid a pint and the pitch is as worn as Roy Hodgson’s toilet seat. As with the away championship game at Essex, the weather took all the bonus points for the return at Wantage Road last week.
As my mum says without a hint of irony: “Global warming makes it colder and wetter, Phillip.”
Stand-in captain Alex Wakely lost the toss on a pitch that looked skiddy but offered enough bounce for good players to get in, and James Foster and Ravi Bopara duly did, after Northants had them rocking at 57 for four.
David Willey was again the livewire with the ball, getting some juice from the pitch.
Jack Brooks looked shot coming in off five paces and just trying to get through six balls by now, and the lunchtime deluge welcome for the end of play at 195 for four.
Brooks’ ongoing back injury is again looking very worrying for our season.
With ChamindaVaas not doing much on his return and the club not too keen on bringing in the needed bowling cover, I think we will get creamed in the Twenty20 if we don’t act.
Andrew Hall, Lee Daggett, Brooks and Willey are hardly consistent seamers in that form of cricket.
David Capel is going to have to nag the management for new faces or he will be on the list for one of those ‘alleged’ retirement bungalows to be built on the ground.
With Friday washed out, 195 for four moved swiftly to 400 for six declared by mid-afternoon on the final day.
Bopara (174) and Foster (135) put on 294 runs, the highest fifth-wicket partnership against Northants on the ground by any county team, a dispirited home attack serving up some right old pies.
Essex offered 350 at five an over to get a game on while we wanted nearer 270 off 60, stingy by Foster.
With little pressure on the returning Ben Howgego, he scored one run off 10 overs, losing his off-stump, a suitable metaphor for his career so far at Northampton - an ominous failure.
I think it’s fair to say Alan Sugar time is beckoning for our Ben.
In fact I could see him on that show with his trendy mop and blue eyes, better off in a shiny suit than ducking a shiny ball.
But he is our only other opener and so officially a specialist blocker!
James Middlebrook, on the other hand, relished the chance to stay out there, sticking it to his previous employees by batting out the day with an elegant hundred, and his second in that role this season. He is one very good cricketer. But with Essex taking three wickets, the bonus point for the 200 was cancelled out and so a wasted exercise, the least entertaining 400 runs in a day ever.
Not to get a game on was shameful on that decent strip. Saturday’s £16 on the gate was outrageous for a rain-affected game. But it’s a nice little unbeaten seven-game run for Capel all the same.
THE Supporters Club celebrated 25 years of running trips to games by doing a free bus to Tunbridge Wells for the CB40 game with the Kent Spitfires last Sunday - the scene of the finest one-day domestic innings ever played in England.
Allan Lamb’s majestic hundred that saw him score off every ball chasing down 12 an over the moment he came to the crease back in the 80s.
In return, the Chronicle Echo ‘celebrated’ their new weekly paper 25 years on by giving Lamby my column space!
The Supporters Club has worked hard to fill buses to Sunday games in recent years, and it would be great if you guys can jump on one.
Sadly, the team has not matched the fans’ enthusiasm and the ‘Stillbottoms’ suffered another soggy washout.
Northants batted first in cloudy and wet conditions and quickly struggled on a seamer-friendly strip before captain Alex Wakely (42) rallied the troops for 165-5 for the 32 over close. Good to see young Rob Keogh (25no) given a hit and Niall O’Brien top scoring against his old county with 46, Coles getting some pleasing tap.
But the rain was back and even the DL has no answers for this soggy season, unable to calculate how relentless consistent cold and rain fits into the global warming model we are supposed to be in.
If two months of downpours and chill can annul 18 months of drought, then surely the model doesn’t work?
Unlucky for the fans who went down there, but a good drink and banter on the way back made the day worthwhile.