April expectations
Kennington - The players are out in the nets, the sun is glinting off the yet-to-be-finished hospitality boxes at the Vauxhall End and the air of expectation is in the air, not just here but across county cricket.
Early April is a great time for hopes, dreams and yet-to-be fulfilled plans that get lost in the unending grind of a six-month season. Every side will be hoping for silverware but here's a guestimate of who should be in the running:
County Championship
With the way the points system works, teams that can post massive first innings totals prosper, as Warwickshire did last year. The Bears will be up there again, as will third-placed finishers Surrey, who finished well after a terrible start to the year and could have Mark Butcher back for much of the year.
Kent rode Rob Key's batting for the first half of last season, before he was snatched away by England, but this year they have rebuilt the line-up with the arrival of Martin van Jaarsveld, Andrew Hall (SA) and former England Academy batsman Darren Stevens. If Key is unavailable, they will do well. If he is passed over by England, the trophy has to be heading to Canterbury.
Totesport League
The one-day league seems to favour the side that can be arsed longest, and sides with injury worries tend to rest players from their Sunday – or whatever day this competition takes place now – teams first.
Glamorgan have a history of doing well and it would take someone with tremendous inside knowledge to back against them. Lancashire, with Fred Flintoff in the side for the first month, could also get a great start.
C&G Trophy
Gloucestershire always seem to do what it takes to clinch this one. They will be described as ageing but they have been over the hill for the last few years and remained focussed on their annual day out at Lord's.
Twenty20 Cup
Why not Lancashire? They got within a game last year, beaten by a Surrey side who will be weakened by the loss of twenty20 specialist Adam Hollioake. They are stocked with canny all-rounders, a level above Glamorgan's, although the Dragons are likely to be there for finals day too. Lancs won't won't have Flintoff for the entire campaign but he could easily be the man who lights up The Brit Oval to take the title.
Stat of the week
1 – The number of counties (Glamorgan) who do not have a foreign player on their books eligible through a European passport or the Kolpak ruling.
Quote of the week
"They've still got another couple of years in them. McGrath's getting better as he goes along and Warnie's growing up as he gets older."
- Former Aussie Test wicket-keeper Steve Rixon makes himself chuckle when asked about the age of the Ashes squad.
Six sense
1. Staying with county pre-seasons for a moment, there is a massive disparity between the best and the worst, and I'm not talking about on the field of play. While Surrey and Essex find a suitable time, lay on some food and trot out their England players, Warwickshire told journalists to be at Edgbaston at 830am on Monday morning. County cricket needs all the exposure it can get, and that isn't a great way to start. It doesn't take a massive budget – it just needs people to understand the needs of journalists, many of whom work around the team all summer and would be happy to make suggestions. Lovely bacon sarnies at The Oval, by the way.
2. I was rooting for Shivnarine Chanderpaul to be given the West Indies captaincy ahead of Brian Lara, before I saw his post-match performance when being grilled by Michael Holding. Ever done a job interview with someone clearly so under-qualified that you have to steer their answers? Ramnaresh Sarwan was dumped as vice-captain in January as the selectors looked for insurance in light of the rumbling Cable & Wireless row but he is still the man for the future.
3. On the same subject, the West Indies players are not being served well by the West Indies Players Association or their head Dinanath Ramnarine. Rather than trying to find a way around this impasse, he has resorted to press releases that are increasingly childish, petulant and naive. Describing the cricket board as "tyrannical and despotic" ain't the way to make things better.
4. It was amazing how quickly the talk went from Inzamam-ul-Haq's captaincy being under pressure to Sourav Ganguly's job being at stake. It took one bad day in Bangalore, Pakistan winning to tie the Test series, to turn the tables. So what if Ganguly's form has been poor? India under his leadership have been better than ever before, in Test cricket at least. Remember Mike Brearly? Two Ashes series wins, and it wasn't because of his batting.
5. If you missed it, the Women's World Cup took place over the last fortnight in South Africa, the majority of it played at tiny club grounds around Pretoria. Coincidentally – but only if you take by rather obscure point of view - it took place at the same time as the women's basketball national championship in the USA. In 1973, at the time of the first World Cup, women's cricket attracted about as many fans as women's college basketball but legislation in the States requiring equal funding for women's college sports has seen that game go ballistic. Women's cricket still has some work to do but they took a useful step earlier this week when the merged with the ICC, giving extra access to funding, sponsorship and TV rights.
6. I hate to do it but I've spent much of the last week bursting the bubbles of expectation surrounding the Ashes. Australia's domination of New Zealand showed that none of those predictions made after England's last thrashing have come true. Glenn McGrath (ankle injury) and Shane Warne (slimming pill ban) have both come back from enforced breaks the perform like teenagers. Adam Gilchrist is just brutal and Ricky Ponting and Damien Martyn are both in fine form. Meawhile Flintoff is an injury doubt, again, and any version of Steve Harmison could turn up on any given day. If it isn't 4-1 again, with England winning a dead rubber, it will be 3-1 with a washout.
