At least the departure of the numpties that dreamed up The Hundred allows the ECB to admit that they got it wrong. The article, though, suggests that there is still no clear thinking about how to make money (sorry, how to run a cricket season) in future. I wonder if the ECB could be persuaded to work towards a two division County Championship with 9 teams in each division, all-play-all, and just one hit-and-giggle competition. It sounds sensible to me.

If everyone is fit, I don't think Chris will get an Ashes game. Stokes will want Broad and Anderson with Robinson as their back-up, plus one of Archer/Wood/Stone plus a spinner. Fitness is the key, though, particularly Stokes himself. If he's not fit to bowl, there is no other batting all-rounder in sight unless they can persuade Moeen to come back. This leaves the wicket-keeper batting at 6 with a long tail to follow. In that case, they would want either Woakes or Curran to bat at seven. Work on your batting, Chris!

Freakin' awesome. There will be some Counties that are thoroughly scared of us in this form. Bring on Surrey. Championship decider next!

I'd go Woakes for Rushworth; Benjamin for Mousley.
Chris Rushworth's big selling point is reliability. He'll always do a job and he'll always be fit. When the others hit the treatment table, he'll be back.
With the plethora of allrounders we suddenly find ourselves having, we can afford the luxury of trying to develop a middle order batsman. Mousley did himself no favours at Taunton by batting like it was the last over of a T20. Somebody else should have a go. Promoting Bethell is an option but it looks like the management want to take a softly, softly approach with him. I'd like a look at Benjamin in red ball cricket - and you never know when we might need a third wicket-keeper!
6-9 of Barnard, Burgess, Bethell, Woakes is pretty awesome at this level.

It feels like we didn't get what we deserved out of that game. If there hadn't been a missing day, we would have won. When we were batting, it looked like 4 bonus points were nailed on for most of the time and (with a push) perhaps 5, especially given the short boundaries. Nevertheless, it was a solid performance and, whilst Somerset's batting is weak, their bowling is not. All five of the front line bowlers against us have played international cricket, so they're not going to give it away. There are worse squads than ours in Divison One this year: we just have to make sure we take our opportunities when they come.

There's a really negative interview on the Somerset website suggesting that the outfield may be unplayable tomorrow.
Why do we always get Taunton in the winter!!!??

Nice one from the publicity department. Given that we start playing this week, it could almost be appropriate!

The quoted sentence is ambiguous as it could be read to mean that Davies would be VC in the one day cup but not in the CC. That would be a lesser mistake.
Davies is a plausible white ball player but far inferior to Burgess in red ball cricket. I have seen nothing to suggest that he is captaincy material in either.

It's not often I agree with Highveld but he's right this time. Briggs to play. Bethell can't do worse than Davies. I'd also bat Burgess at 5.
We'll stay up. Easily if we see a fair bit of Woakes.

There will always be a downside to the mercenary system. The hired guns are good players (and they don't come much better than Maxwell) but when they are wandering the earth playing handfuls of games with a bunch of guys they barely recognise, they are not going to be at peak intensity all the time. It's not their fault - I'm sure they believe they are trying their best - but you can't always be at 100% so why would you be on a cold evening in Derby for a group match in The Blast?
Maxwell will put bums on seats and sprinkle a little stardust around the dressing room. If he puts in a couple of eye-catching on-field performances, that's about as much as we should expect.

Difficult to believe, but the following (reported in The Times) includes comments from the new ECB Chairman that are music to the ears.

The ECB chairman, Richard Thompson, believes there is “too much white-ball domestic cricket” and that the time has come for the governing body to say “no” to broadcasters demanding more.
“There is probably too much domestic white-ball franchise cricket — ultimately a broadcaster can keep putting money on the table but the national governing body at some point is going to say no,” Thompson said. “I think we’re now at that stage where governing bodies have got to say when we actually have too much and that is probably now.”
“I have a personal view on this, and I think that view is shared by the ECB directors,” he said. “It’s that the primacy of the game is red-ball cricket. It has to be. Careers are defined by winning Ashes — probably before World Cup wins, and in that sense, the ECB I feel is, and has to be, the custodian of that particular format.”

He'll never last with that attitude!

Quite a Trophy Cabinet for Chris Woakes now, having played in sides that have won the 50-over World Cup, the 20-over World Cup, The Ashes and a Domestic County Championship. I believe that is a unique combination.
Now he's won everything, do you think he might like to retire from International cricket and come back to help out the Bears?

I always love an invitation to tell somebody they are wrong but, in this case, I wouldn't change a syllable. Spot on.

I'd be willing to cut Buttler a bit of slack here. He was asked for his opinion so gave it, although why one should give any weight to what is said by somebody who hardly ever turns out at County level is another matter.
What grates with me is that he is trotting out the line that players need more rest and recovery time. Do the poor ickle darlings really need a good long break after bowling 4 overs (or, indeed, 3.2 overs)? I suspect that whirring sound in the background is Jack Bannister spinning in his grave.

Just a word for Will Rhodes, who has taken some stick on here this year. You don't win such a tight, tense finish without a captain who can hold his nerve. Good calls in this game. Well done, mate.

Incredible. Wow! So pleased.

The points deduction for Yorkshire is way, way overdue. Presumably it is being kept back until the ECB are sure that it won't hurt them.

If we go down, do we get first dibs on Colwyn Bay?

The philosopher Bertrand Russell once wrote words to the effect that the best way to resolve a difference of opinion was discussion but that, in any debate, there might come a time when you concluded that the person with whom you were arguing was an idiot and any further talking was just a waste of time. I wonder if the Counties might have got to that point with the ECB. Only an idiot would distort the calendar to such an extent that most County grounds saw hardly any cricket in August by introducing a competition designed for people who don't like cricket. I'd love to see the Counties tell the ECB to shove the 16.4 and all its money. Schedule a two division, all-play-all County Chamionship from mid-May to mid-September with a Blast competition on Friday nights. Sorted.

I’m getting puzzled by this: not the proposals but the process. When I was involved in consulting, I was told that the client usually knew what conclusion he wanted so your first job was to write the final report. In the second phase, you gathered evidence to support the conclusion and in the final phase you “sold” the ideas to those people who were going to be affected.

So far, so ECB. The conclusion was always going to be that there should be less red ball cricket in order to make room for more hit-and-giggle. The “evidence” is transparently rigged to support that. (The suggestion that The Hundred is “best v best” is up there with “there were no parties in Downing Street” when it comes to non-credible assertions.) But then the final phase, where Andrew Strauss is being dispatched to indoctrinate the troops, is being horribly botched. It’s difficult to see how the ECB could just blunder on with what they’ve got given what appears to be unanimity amongst press and supporters that it isn’t a workable solution. So what are they going to do? Throw another bone to the Counties in the hope that the turkeys will vote for Christmas again as they did with The Hundred? Tear the report up and start again? Come clean that they find first class cricket an annoyance that gets in the way of making money?

I was going to ask for answers on a postcard but, actually, the back of an envelope would probably do better than the ECB can manage.