Worcestershire certainly have a habit of finding young Asian talent in Birmingham and the surrounding areas much better than Warwickshire do (Ali was at the Bears for a while but never made it there).

I must admit I thought Hants could chase it down as neither of Worcestershire's main seamers - Matt Mason and Ashley Noffke - were playing and, the two spinners (Fisher & Batty) apart, there didn't seem to be much to the worcs bowling attack, compounded when Kabir Ali went off injured after only 5 overs.

I've watched Hampshire on a number of occasions now and each time I've see Sean Ervine get out for next to nothing

320 at this time of year is an impressive score at any ground there were a fair few low scores up and down the country

Good start for Yorkshire, just need to nip Blackwell out now.

Anderson has taken 6-56 for Lancs.

Dur 362

Yorks 16-0

Hoggard took 4-62, also Broad has taken the first 4 wickts for Notts 4-42.

Kent have signed South Africa international fast bowler Wayne Parnell as their overseas player for 2009, initially for a six-week period

Good end to the third day for Lancs, Sussex are 148-5 with a lead of 138. Could be an interesting day tomorrow.

Hopefully see Mullaney kick on at Lancs this year, best junior batsman I played against by a country mile, playing for his first class future this season me thinks.

To go with their 4 other kolpak players?? Brilliant for the English game...

And as GT says, should be an entertaining last day for Lancs down at Hove...we'll probably roll them over in the morning but then get bowled out for about 100...one thing's for certain - we won't make it easy for ourselves whatever the outcome!!

A disastrous day for Yorkshire today!

Losing the last 4 wickets for 8 runs, now Durham are 145-1, a lead of 235!

You were nearly right as well did roll them over then lost 2 early wickets but we've now recovered to be 121-2 needing another 36 runs to win.

Easy win for Lancs in the end.

Ashwell Prince has already done more in 2 innings' than Nathan Astle and Lou Vincent did in their spells at OT!!

I hope Lancs do well considering i have a season tick but when anderson goes and plays for england i cant see were they are going to find someone who will get the same amount of wickets he does

I've always liked the rain for some reason.

Chapple and Keedy.

They're both already in the team as well as Anderson, and both seem to produce the goods year in year out in any case without having yet inspired a championship success. Who's going to step in to replace Anderson and provide something extra? Time for Mahmood to have a big season if Lancs are to make a real challenge.

I can see Sussex going down this year. They only just stayed up last time and played very negatively and nervously against the doomed Surrey at the end of last season. (13 overs an hour in one session, more than half bowled by spinners.) Their three times championship winning side has grown old together and they haven't brought on the next generation. Durham and Notts look strong again, while Hampshire might be a surprise package if they carry on where they left off last year after shaking off the post-Warne era lethargy.

Kent are bookies favourites for Division 2 (although their bowling attack looked pretty ordinary on paper for their last match) with Middx & Surrey joint second favourites, but that division looks fairly open to me. Surrey look a bit too dependent for runs on the remnants of their last championship winning side (Butcher, Ramprakash, Batty) while younger homegrown batsmen like Evans, Spriegel and Chris Murtagh find their feet, and have a weak tail with no convincing lower-middle order batsmen unless NZ overseas player Grant Elliott is an unqualified success. Andre Nel should be a matchwinner at that level if he stays fit though, and there's the likelihood of Harbhajan boosting our chances later in the season.

Essex have enough good young players to be in with a shout; I think those four Home Counties sides have the best top order batting resources and ought to fill the top four places come September.

We haven't been able to "rely" on Jimmy Anderson and his wickets for the past 2-3 years anyway as he's been centrally contracted and only plays limited numbers of games for us so its not a massive dilemma really...any times he plays for us should be seen as a nice bonus!

As it goes Im thinking Oliver Newby may well be a surprise package this season and Tom Smith has plenty of potential to take wickets and score runs.

It's our batting that always lets us down, not the bowling attack. If the batsmen had matched the effort of the bowlers last season we'd have been a shoe-in for the title. As it was, we got the lowest number of batting points in the whole division due to the batting form which cost us dearly on more than one occasion.

Concentrating on the one-day game this year, giving the Championship a miss.

Phil Hughes and Andrew Strauss currently batting together for Middlesex. Hughes has started the season the way he did in South Africa and in Australia before that. He's going to absolutely destroy our bowling attack, Flintoff or not, this summer.

Yorkshire 76-0 without loss at lunch against Worcestershire, although the forecast for the rest of the day isn't great and the clouds are gathering.

Strauss going along well 95 (98 ).

Telegraph fantasy cricket if anybody is interested........only 6 quid.

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And once again, Lancashire's batting goes to pieces.