The County Scene - Week 19: Pakistan thrashed by swing-king Jimmy

I have decided that this is the perfect opportunity to make my first proper use of our new Audioboo technology, much like the Umpire Decision Review System, which was used for the first time in England in this test match. As has been said, each recording can only last five minutes. Hence why I have decided to call this segment "Five Minute Test Match". Yes, I know, it's so clever. Here is the score and analysis:

England 354 (Morgan 130, Collingwood 82, Mohammad Asif 5-77) and 262-9d (Prior 102*) beat Pakistan 182 (Gul 65*, Anderson 5-54) and 80 (Anderson 6-17) by 354 runs



There really can be no denying Jimmy Anderson at the moment. Career best match figures, to go with a successful Saturday night game show:



So after a multimedia approach to the test match, it's probably time to settle down and cover the domestic T20 quarter-finals. Which for the most part were pretty good. The only one which failed to set the pulses racing was Somerset's seven-wicket cruise against Northants. To be honest, I couldn't care less how they won but it was so one-sided! Murali Kartik and Arul Suppiah bowled their eight overs of left-arm spin for less than 30 runs in total as nobody managed to find their timing on an unusually dry and hostile Taunton pitch. Rob White's hilarious running between the wickets didn't help at all as three men perished run out.

Now the other three games certainly had their merits. Notts only managed 141 from their overs against Sussex, which seemed under par on a good Trent Bridge pitch, although not as poor as 80 all out in a test match! Yasir Arafat picked up 4 wickets, looking potent as ever at the death of the innings. However, Notts defended the total magnificently, particularly Darren Pattinson with 3-17 in his three overs. No batsman got 30, so no momentum was gathered, and Sussex fell 14 runs short. Lancashire put up a stiff 183 for Essex to chase and they succeeded thanks to a second wicket stand of 147 between Mark Pettini (81) and Matt Walker (74) in an eight wicket victory. The best game came at Edgbaston. Home side Warwickshire hit 153, Darren Maddy top scoring in a real team effort. The runs were restricted by Hampshire's left arm spinner Danny Briggs. The run chase was certainly a one-man effort - James Vince underlined his huge potential with an anchoring 66* as the Royals scraped home by 5 wickets with one ball left. Vince is the Victoria Sponge LAD of the week for this knock.

I have a Notts vs Essex final (my brother tells me this is a pretty pessimistic view). For the fourth year in a row, I will be away for finals day which is a bit gutting but to be honest Livingston vs Dumbarton will be so worth it!
RM