English County Cricket 2016!

Spare a thought for the bowlers at Trent Bridge today. Nottinghamshire finished with a ridiculous 445/8 from their 50 overs and Northants are making a really good fist of the chase at 359/6 after 40. 87 needed from the final 10 overs. Rory Kleinveldt is currently smashing the ball to all parts of the ground - 112 off 50 balls.

Just checking the record books - Nottinghamshire's 445 is the second highest ever List A score. Surrey hold the record with 496/4.

Sam Billings with a 53 ball century for Kent today in the Royal London Cup. Between, Bairstow, Buttler and Billings, England have some fantastic young keepers to choose from.

Good to see Lyth score a few runs. He has really struggled for runs since his international debut.

McCullum also notched a century today for Middlesex, finishing with 110 off 85 balls.

Hampshire's dire season continues. They have thrown away a good start and now need 162 off 18 overs with 5 wickets in hand. Afridi just chopped one on.

Azeem Rafiq has signed a new contract with Yorkshire after almost two years out of the professional game.


Rafiq, an off-spinning allrounder who became the first player of Asian origin to captain Yorkshire in 2012, was released in 2014 after failing to build on the potential that saw him captain England at age-group level and win a place on the ECB's performance programme in 2013.


He has continued to represent Barnsley in club cricket and recently returned to the Yorkshire second team. With the club losing several players to England duty in the coming weeks, notably their lead spinner Adil Rashid, Rafiq has signed for the club until the end of the season and is in the squad for the NatWest Blast match against Nottinghamshire in Leeds on Friday.

In fact he was the Golden Boy for a while even ahead of Adil.