Being broad minded I have been watching the 16.4 (well two deliveries actually, but that's two more than last year), but I still don't like it and cba to watch anymore - I will give it a try again next year though

'Deadly' Derek Underwood in his delivery stride giving the batsman, entirely in keeping with his soubriquet, the evil eye

This is David Steele setting off for a run - he remains a great favourite of those of us who remember his all too brief Test career in 1975 and 1976 - he looks a little pensive here to me, perhaps not certain that he's pierced the field, but he's going for it anyway?

I'm so cynical about politics these days that it barely raises an eyebrow, but listening to Kwaze Kwarteng pontificating about our economic woes has really got the red mist rising 😡

Brian Lara on his way to a superb 152 against England at Trent Bridge in 1995 a match remembered by some, well Jamie Magill and me anyway, as Mike Watkinson's finest hour 🙂

His 212 Test wickets at 28.38 is a decent record for Merv Hughes, but had it not been for Graham Gooch being out handled the ball rather than being castled by Merv at Old Trafford in 1993 it would have been 213 at 28.24 - I wonder what Merv said to Goochie as he walked off?

This weekend on CricketWeb I review two recent titles. The first is Vic Marks' look at the England captaincy since 1979 The Nightwatchman Fairfield Books and the second from steve smith on the least well known of the Golden Age tours made by the Gentlemen of Philadelphia

A disconsolate Kim Hughes leaves Test cricket after completing a pair against West Indies at the MCG in 1984 - he was only 30 but had had a dreadful series scoring only 81 runs at 10.12, yet just a few months earlier in the Caribbean he had averaged 62.50

Back in their playing days we have Nasser Hussain and Mike atherton following one of David Gower's training drills

.... and it doesn't even mention this newly published book from Adelphi Archive , perhaps their best ever?

You wouldn't want to be 22 yards away from this - a demonic looking Mike Procter lets loose one of those prodigious inswinging thunderbolts from a bowling action that even if he didn't quite do so, looked for all the world like he was bowling off the wrong foot

Wtf is going on in the heads of those at England and Wales Cricket Board? I get that they're not going to allow me to watch a red ball game but I do love my cricket, so as there's no way I'm going to watch the clusterfuck that is the 16.4 why can't they schedule some Metro Bank cup games for today?

It's back to the Golden Age with this one, and a rarely remembered tour of Jamaica by The Gentlemen of Philadelphia CricketWeb steve smith cricketweb.net/books/philadel…

An old classic is brought up to date in this new title from Fairfield Books CricketWeb Fairfield Books The Nightwatchman cricketweb.net/books/tccoe/

I don't have it all that often, but am partial to a crumpet with marmite - this morning, for the first time in my life I had vegemite instead - struck me as a bit milder, but the squeezy bottle is a boon - overall I'm impressed

Chappelli and Tony Greig with, on this occasion, Greigy wisely deciding that discretion was the better part of valour

Graeme Hick, circa 1989 before his Test career began and a time when he was as exciting a batsman as we had in the English game. After he was capped in 1991 he spent the rest of his career as as frustrating a batsman as we had, and not, imo anyway, through any fault of his own

Clive Lloyd described him as being 'as untidy as an unmade bed but as devastating as a hand grenade' - this is Colin Milburn during his double century against Queensland for Western Australia at the 'Gabba in 1968 (or so I'm told - but it's definitely Ollie)

With, for once, a face like thunder The Greatest, with opposite number Colin Cowdrey and the President of the Jamaican Cricket Association after the crowd rioted in the Kingston Test in 67/68 - at the crease at the time The Greatest went on to complete one of his finest hundreds

By the time West Indies became firmly established as the best team in the world Roy Fredericks was no longer in the side, but in his role as a mercurial opening batsman he certainly helped get them there