Berkshire Saint

Jones was 12th man for this game but I've given up on him for Championship cricket. Useful enough to have for one-dayers though. Chris Wood did ok in the few Championship games he had last year and so did Balcombe. Riazzuddin mainly plays one day cricket but is apparently injured at the moment. And then there's Ali who played in the Uni game last week but is probably still a little way off being risked in a Championship game. No idea what the Mascarenhas situation is at the moment but think we can write him off for four cricket for this season. Looks a real shambles at the moment with all of the injured players and only Adams and Dawson making any contributions with the bat. Cork's bowling form is particuarly worrying as well.

Bar a few internet warriors, I don't think we are hated at all. Most people I've met seem to have a bit of respect for us, want to see us go up this year and be back in the Prem in the not too distant future...

Yeah happy to avoid relegation again I reckon. Hopefully do well in the 40 over and T20 though. We get all the usual propaganda every year about this year we'll challenge for the title etc etc. Problem is most of our potential 'Best XI' are usually injured.

Haha oops. According to Twitter, Pothas is injured and the Notts Academy keeper is going to fill in until Bates gets to Nottingham!

Yeah I agree. 217/9 now. If we can sneak up to 230/240 that might not be so bad a total.

Yeah, that's definitely the case. Always seem to be a load of middle aged couples at away games! I didn't think the atmosphere was too bad yesterday. I was so knackered after the drive I was quite happy not to be standing up to be honest and usually need a couple of beers in me to be singing all game. Thought the Rochdale fans were some of the best home fans I've come across recently.

Yep. That's pretty much my situation too! It hasn't been too bad so far. Quite tiring though by the end of the day!

Reckon that might be a typo. This article and others suggest it's around a month: http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/cricket/counties/hampshire/9450100.stm

Currently am one of the temporary workers myself, had my first day yesterday.

Has done it a bit in 2009 and I think once or twice last year too. Apparently Tahir isn't coming until next month now so looks like Briggs will play on Friday.

Starts this Friday! Pretty hard to predict with the injury doubts but I'll give it a go... Adams, Dawson, Myburgh, McKenzie, Vince, Ervine, Pothas, Cork, Tahir, Jones, De Wet. Assuming that Carberry isn't going to be fit and I doubt they'll risk playing Jones and Ali in the same side in case one of them breaks down! Howell could get a chance ahead of Dawson if he out-scores him in this match and Tomlinson might play ahead of Jones if he isn't 100%.

Indeed. Needs to be able to bat at 8 (at the very lowest, 7 ideally) and average high 20s/low 30s if he's going to make it.

Slightly worrying about Carberry if he's still recovering from the injury he had that ruled him out of the England Performance Squad in December. Suggests he's unlikely to play the first Championship game at least anyway.

He played probably half of his games for us (15 or so appearances in total?) at right back .He was ****e. Never seen a professional player look so afraid of making tackles!

They are on sale online. Had tickets for the original date (was staying in Sheffield in that weekend so was pretty convenient) and was initially going to get a refund, never got round to it and have now decided to drive up on the night. Should be a good laugh, albeit a depressing journey back if we lose!

Currently reading A Farewell to Arms by Hemingway at the moment actually, about a third of the way through. Decent stuff so far. Since I last posted on this thread about six weeks ago have read quite a bit. Got through Stewart Lee's book pretty quickly, good insight into his career and how he works. Read Orwell's Road to Wigan Pier pretty rapidly, a couple of chapters of it were studied as my part of my History degree last year so thought I might as well read the whole thing. Also read his Down and Out in Paris and London for the first time too. Great read. Particuarly enjoyed the Paris chapters of it. Finished my Orwell binge (for the time being) by re-reading Animal Farm for the first time since I was about 13/14 or so. Also read Martin Amis's Money which was really funny in parts and What Did The Baby Boomers Ever Do for Us? by Francis Beckett. Book essentially argues that the radicalism of the 1960s was betrayed by the same former radicals once they got themselves into positions of authority (the Blair and Brown governments) and ****ed things up for their children (my generation!). Makes some fairly crude generalisations at times but the crux of the argument I agreed with (and have done for some time). Currently reading three books at once, Hemingway as mentioned above, Robert Service's biography of Stalin and CLR James' Beyond a Boundary. The latter is really interesting, published in the mid 1960s and essentially focuses on James' experiences growing up in the West Indies and the importance of cricket and politics in his life. Got a massive pile to read through at the moment, including a couple mentioned by Revolution Saint; Manufacturing Consent and A People's History of the US.

Agreed. I posted something similar on the Charlton post match thread.

Went in the home last year, I sat in the back row of the West Stand and it was fine. Celebrated our equaliser pretty openly and no-one cared!

Yeah true, when he first came on other player didn't look too keen to give him the ball. Anyone else spot John Denham MP in the away end by the way?

1-1 was probably a fair enough result in the end given the pressure they put us under in the last 15/20 minutes or so. Davis didn't have a lot to do but their keeper only made one or two saves of note too. So frustrating to concede so late though. Another thing, I wish people would lay off N'Guessen. He's nowhere near as bad as people make him out to be. Yes, his touch is heavy but other than that I thought he showed some signs of promise. The stick he gets whenever he miss-places a pass is ridiculous. People should remember that we're in League 1 so most of our players aren't going to be all that...we're ****ing lucky we've got Lallana and Chamberlain as our regular wingers in this but I reckon N'Guessen is a perfectly reasonable as a squad player and it looks like he may start the next few games so just get behind him. No time for pointless scapegoats at this stage of the season.

Dernbach you mean? He is a pie-chucker, bizzare decision to call him up ahead of Woakes. Whilst it's great to see Briggs doing well and I really rate him, I wouldn't get too excited. West Indies cricket is pretty weak and the pitches are notoriously spin friendly these days for some reason. Or maybe it's because the West Indies are usually so awful at playing spin. Five of the top six leading wicket takers in the competition (including Briggs) are spinners. Imagine he'll be a bit jaded by the start of the season after a long stint and a lot of cricket in the West Indies so I doubt he'll play much at the start of our season. He should look to establish himself in the one day team (his one day stats aren't great yet despite his amazing T20 record) and hopefully from July onwards he'll play as a second spinner along with Tahir in some Championship matches. I think South Africa are touring England in 2012 so we won't have Tahir back then which means Briggs will get a full run in the side as the main spinner that year. He's not 20 until next month amazingly! He'll definitely play for England at some point, potentially the winter tours of 2012/13?

7.84 miles L1 Wycombe Wanderers Football Club 13.44 miles CH Reading Football Club RG2 0FL 16.18 miles CH Watford Football Club WD18 0ER 18.30 miles L1 Brentford Football & Sports Club 19.29 miles L2 Aldershot Town FC 21.38 miles CH Queens Park Rangers Football and Athletic Club 21.92 miles PR Fulham Football Club 23.14 miles PR Chelsea Football Club 24.20 miles L2 Barnet Football Club 26.78 miles PR Arsenal Football Club 51.80 to Southampton apparently. Think it's actually closer to 60 but there you go.

I just turned up on the day last year and got in the home end. Might be a bit different this year though with them pushing for the play-offs so they may be less keen to have away fans in the home end and only open it up to people on their database or something. There were plenty of Saints in with the home fans last year, including the bloke sat next to me! The two tickets per ST holder is pretty annoying. I've been to a reasonable number of aways this season (Sheffield Wednesday, Huddersfield, Notts County, Dagenham, Peterborough, Walsall and going to Charlton and Rochdale) but don't live locally so don't know any ST holders. So as Turkish says above, could have fans at Orient who haven't been to a game all season ahead of those who go quite regularly to aways.

Jaidi as well probably.

He's at Northampton. Left Cov a couple of years ago.