To Cap it All...
Lloyd - cap mystery.
David Lloyd gets to the bottom of his cap mystery and looks forward to a bright future for English cricket.
It's unfortunate when a game is called off, but I want to know why there hasn't been much of an effort to rearrange the match for another date.
It's a shame for all of the people who bought tickets. Obviously they'll be reimbursed, but that's not the point. People wanted to see a game of cricket and there doesn't seem to have been much urgency to find another date.
They obviously couldn't play on Thursday or Friday because of the one-day international, but I'm certain there were other days when it could be played - the following Sunday for example.
It's also a shame for the players as it was due to be the last Twenty20 match before the Stanford game.
Anybody that wants to get into that Stanford team needs to be playing Twenty20 cricket, so I'd like to see some of the stars of the Twenty20 Cup called up.
But from what I've heard, they'll stick with the same old tried and tested failures - the normal faces that keep losing.
So much for my great idea to stay in a pub instead of a hotel last week.
The place we stayed in was very nice, but there was one fundamental problem - it didn't sell beer.
It turned out we weren't staying in a pub after all, it was more like a restaurant with rooms. The food was terrific and the people were very nice, but when we wanted a pint we had to go across the road to the nearest pub (which was unfortunately called The Cock).
In all seriousness though, myself, Bob Willis and Paul Allott had a very nice few days in Roade, a village just outside Northampton, while we were working on the U19 international.
If you'd listened to one of my audio blogs last week you'd have heard me tell you I was off to see England's U19s against India, so I was very confused when I arrived at the ground to find out we were actually playing New Zealand!
But despite that mix-up, I'd say it was one of the best England U19 teams that I've seen. There were two really good opening bowlers called James Harris and Ian Saxelby, who was bowling at 86mph.
The captain Tom Westley did well, there was an excellent batsman called Liam Dawson and I saw the best wicket keeper I've seen all year in Ben Brown. He plays for Sussex and he looks the part; I'm quite excited about him.
We looked a very strong and competitive fielding side, which has traditionally been a poor area in my dealings with the Under 19s. The coaches and the support staff are clearly doing a very good job because they looked exceptional
I'll be at Headingley for the first ODI and it'll be very interesting to see what Kevin Pietersen's team is.
This will definitely be Kevin's team and having won a Test match as captain, I want to see how he leads the team into one-day cricket.
I'm hoping he'll say "up and at them, let's play some shots". My opinion is that they have been playing 'what if' cricket when they should be playing 'no fear' cricket.
Pietersen has always approached the game with the right attitude so hopefully the others will follow his lead.
One thing has baffled me though. Owais Shah opened the batting in the Lions game against South Africa so I'd assumed he'd be opening at Headlingley.
It seems that's not the case and Matt Prior will move back up the order again. It seems quite silly to be swapping the positions around - why not play them where they're going to play on Friday?
Last week I told you how I was gutted to miss out on the internet auction to buy Mark E Smith's Mojo award.
Well, I haven't managed to get my hands on it but a fellow Fall fan did give me a picture of Mark E Smith with the award, which I carried around Manchester with me all day on Wednesday.
I've been e-mailing this fellow through the Fall's website and it turns out he works for Victim Support in Manchester, so I have given him a miniature bat signed by Andrew Flintoff, which will be auctioned off to the raise money for that very good charity.
Andrew doesn't know he's been helping them out, but I'll tell him when I see him at Headingley...