Ey up,

In the words of Del-Boy Trotter, “We’ve done it; we’ve only gone and done it!” ‘It’ being to qualify for this year’s CB40 semi-finals, rather than saddle the world with another feckless cockney wide-boy.

We had to work hard to get there, mind. Ten wins out of eleven group matches being needed to ensure we progressed any further. Seem a bit of a tough ask to you? Well, that’s because the domestic fixture list – the ECB’s annual inoculation to stop cricket catching commonsense – was so crammed to the gills with the newly expanded 16 match T20 competition there was no more room for the CB40 to have quarter-finals. Hey presto, any team getting off to a slow start was out of the running before they’d played half their games, leaving them less than fully motivated opposition for sides quicker out of the blocks who then found themselves stuck in an endless loop where victory made little improvement to their overall chances of securing the one guaranteed qualifying spot in each group.

Ok, there are other more pressing problems for cricket to deal with at the moment, and in terms of making mistakes we’re not quite in ‘urinating on an electric fence’ or ‘waking up next to Amanda Platell’ territory; but it is another indication that as far as the ECB are concerned, increasingly desperate attempts to ring every last penny out of punters remain the first, last and everything in-between of their existence. As for the poor schmucks actually coughing up their hard-earned, they could stand in the middle of the Lords square doing naked star-jumps and still be completely ignored.

Another consequence of 20/20 pushing everyone and everything out of its path like Jabba the Hut zeroing in on a finger buffet has been the scheduling of the CB40 semi-finals the day before an ODI at Headingley. With the need for the semi to have a reserve day, that means Yorkshire get a bonus trip out to the seaside, and another packed house at Scarboough.

All well and good, but as delightful as North Marine road is, its 8,000 capacity will go no way to satisfying ticket demand and  leaves YCCC £100-150,000 short of the income they’d have got at Headingley. For a club with serious debts, in danger of posting a loss in next year’s accounts and trying to compete for the signing of Ryan Sidebottom that’s money they can ill afford to lose out on.

Si’thee later,

Len

Result: Yorkshire won by 4 wickets

My Man of the Match: Anthony McGrath

[Scorecard]