The Googly

County Championship Division One Round-Up

This is a really messy time for English domestic cricket. Pro40 matches continue on a daily basis providing Sky with schedule fodder, and Saturday will see the annual Twenty20 Finals day jamboree. Nevertheless, the County Championship is also in full swing. If anything shows the redundancy of the Pro40, it's the first week of August.

In the fortnight since the last round-up, Chac (our aggressive Mayan Rain God, right), aided by some less than enterprising captaincy, has presided over a succession of draws which has left Yorkshire on top of the table (but vulnerable to a Sussex win in their current match with Lancashire). Durham, Warwickshire, Lancashire, Hampshire and Kent are grouped tightly in mid-table, with Surrey and the doomed Worcestershire in the relegation slots.

We can only hope that Chac turns his attention elsewhere soon and that the table has a little more shape by next week's round-up.

[The Tooting Trumpet]

Performance of the Day - Murray Goodwin

Whilst Mushtaq Ahmed collects the plaudits for Sussex's continuing excellence and Chris Adams captaincy is seen as critical in instilling belief into the team, there's a quiet man who displays consistency and heart week-in, week-out - Zimbabwean Murray Goodwin.

Sussex were up against it at Liverpool this afternoon with their last seven batsmen scoring just 27 runs between them against the guile of Cork, Chapple and Murali. However, with Murray farming the strike, those 27 runs were worth 120 to the team as he added 74 not out on his own account and Lancashire conceded an absurd 39 extras. That's the kind of team play that picks up the PotD.

Murray is yet again topping Sussex's averages this season at 61 boosting his already impressive career average of 48 - somehow you just know that none of those were cheap runs, especially the 335 not out that sealed Sussex's first County Championship in 2003. A minor casualty of Zimbabwe's agony, his international record is good but truncated. He sought a different route to cricket fulfilment, and I think he found it.

[The Tooting Trumpet] [Image: Getty]

England cricket's wicketkeeping problems - a possible solution

Matt Prior has once again failed to set the world alight in the latest England Test match, and while in his defence not many other batsmen did either, worries still linger over the wicketkeeping position and whether Prior is the man for the job.

The question of who is England's best wicketkeeper has a very simple answer: Chris Read.  However, the question of who is the best wicketkeeper-batsman is an altogether more complex one.  There is, at least, a pool of players to choose from (unlike the dearth in the spinning department), with James Foster, Steve Davies, and Tim Ambrose the likely front-runners.  Prior has been given the entire summer at home to show that he is the man for the job, a task at which has has left too many boxes without ticks in; specifically the ones around footwork and wicketkeeping (absurdly). 

I suggest the selectors offer the same indulgence to the other candidates: an ECB version of The Apprentice if you like.  Give one player the Sri Lanka tour, the next New Zealand, and the third the opening series of next summer.  Whoever performs best on balance gets the job through to the 2009 Ashes, for that is really what we are aiming for is it not?  [Image: Getty]

Second Test: England player ratings

India have won the second Test by seven wickets, but how did the England players fare?  Here is our totally arbitrary verdict.

Andrew Strauss - 6  Was as guilty as everyone else in the first innings, but a half-century in the second was a decent perfomance and would have been a seven had he not given his wicket away in the second innings with such a filthy shot.

Alastair Cook - 6  Looks in good nick when in, but is starting to make a return to his Ashes trick of getting out having just played himself in.  Frustrating

Michael Vaughan - 8 Got a corking ball from Khan in the first innings, but was nothing short of majestic in the second, scoring 124 sumptuous runs.  Is there a more beatiful player at the crease when in form?

Kevin Pietersen - 5 Very poor from the best in the squad.  Done by inswing in both innings by the same bowler (RP Singh); missed attempted whip to leg in the first and shouldered arms to a plum inswinger in the second.  Seems jaded.

Paul Collingwood - 7  One thing you can guarantee with him is bottle and battle, and he brought plenty to this match after a woeful Test at Lord's.  Supported his captain superbly with a stoic 63 from 133 balls in the second innings and was second only to Cook in the debacle that was day one.

Ian Bell - 5 Decent, nurdling 31 to start, but his second ball bat-flap at a ball angled into his pads in the second innings when the pressure was on will once again ask questions.  On shaky ground.

Matt Prior - 5  Looked like Kumble's rabbit in the first, swishing and haymaking in the face of the wily spinner before finally edging a wide one that he really should have left alone.  Got an inswinger Waqar would have been proud of in the second, but still has issues with his footwork in my book.

Chris Tremlett - 8  Bowled superbly, even in the dead end street that was India's second innings run-chase, finishing with match figures of 6-92.  Was odds on to make way when The Hog regained fitness, but I'm not so sure now.

Ryan Sidebottom - 8  Will bowl much worse than this and get much better figures in the future.  Consistently teased with swing and accuracy, and beat the bat so often for no reward he must have felt like his home ground had cursed him

Monty Panesar - 7 It says much of his standing in the team now that he simply did what we would expect, bowled economically and picked up four wickets.  Hit a gorgeous cover drive in the second innings for four as well, and skyed the next ball for a catch, naturally.

Jame Anderson - 6 "Jimmy, Jimmy, such a silly boy" sang Feargal Sharkey of The Undertones, and after another wayward performance from the Lancastrian it could have been about him.  Disappointing after his performance at Lord's; perhaps doubly so for him as it could see him dropped.

Second Test, day five: India 73-3 - India win by seven wickets

India took longer than expected to reach the inevitable conclusion of the second Test this morning. Admittedly they were still done before lunch, but it was a session at least 30 minutes longer than I expected.

Chris Tremlett took three wickets this morning, removing openers Dinesh Karthik and Wasim Jaffer as well as Sachin Tendulkar to slow down the march to victory, and certainly had India had to chase down a slightly bigger target, the hostile quick bowling they faced this morning may have proved too much for them.

Zaheer Khan was, of course, named man of the match for his nine-wicket haul; his team-mate Shanta Sreesanth has kept a low profile today after being fined half of his match fee for a barge on Michael Vaughan yesterday. The stupid jellybean saga doesn't look likely to die down any time soon either, with sweets scattered around the outfield all morning. [Carrie Dunn] [Image: Getty]

Umpires for Twenty20 World Championships announced

It's Twenty20tastic! Yes, the world champs start in September, but we won't be seeing that famously flamboyant crooked finger.

Billy Bowden has been prevented from umpiring in the competition because he was involved in the World Cup Final fiasco - Steve Bucknor, Aleem Dar and Rudi Koertzen won't be there either.

Instead, Mark Benson, Billy Doctrove, Daryl Harper, Asad Rauf, Simon Taufel, Steve Davis, Ian Howell, Nigel Llong and Tony Hill will be the men in charge.

Presumably that answers the question as to why Steve Bucknor was replaced in the middle by Howell for the second Test between England and India - to give him more mainstage experience. [Carrie Dunn] [Image: Getty]

Even more dominant Indian batsmen

Continuing our theme for the day, and as requested by our very own Tooting Trumpet, here is VVS Laxman scoring his incredible 281 against the awesome Australians of Steve Waugh & co.

Men Who Look Like Graham Gooch, No 11: Pringles bloke

Many thanks to Googly fan and member of our wonderful Facebook group Richard O'Hagan for sending us this cracker for this week's Goochalike.

"Once you pop, you can't stop" they say about Pringles, and Goochie was much like that: playing on and on and on before finally retiring at the age of 78 to send us all to sleep on TMS.

Once again this blog is first with the cricket reportage that really matters!

More footage of dominant Indian batsmen

Seeing as we all cannot get enough of India batting at the minute, here's Kapil Dev and Dilip Vengsarkar's match-winning partnership in the 1985 World Championship of Cricket semi-final.  New Zealand are the victims of this powder-blue onslaught.

Online Videos by Veoh.com

To sledge or not to sledge?

Dinesh Karthik is upset that the nasty big boys were mean to him at the weekend, saying that the England players have overstepped the mark now.

He told the Times of India: "I don't mind it as long as the chirping stops after I've taken my stance. I was unhappy at Lord's because they were doing it even when I was ready to face the ball."

And the spat between Zaheer Khan and Kevin Pietersen took a bizarre turn when it was reported that the argument began when batsman Khan noticed a jelly bean placed on a length on the track in front of him, and accused sweetie-eater Pietersen of putting it there.