Indeed, it came to pass. Hail my meteorological skills*





* - I looked out of the window

Azeem Rafiq getting first crack at captaining Yorkshire in Gale's injury absence. Good to see brave choices being made.

He's done the last couple hasn't he? Youngest ever Yorkshire captain and first of Asian heritage.

Aye, former England Under 19s skipper if I remember rightly. In your face, confident character, which probably explains why Gillespie rates him as a leader.

Top Test series tomorrow and provisional World T20 squad named now. No KP, as expected. Cook is in, so are Gareth Batty (what?), Joe Root (yeah, OK) and Matt Prior (hallelujah). Oh, and Luke Wright (Seriously?). 30 names to be whittled down to 15 by August 18.

Anyway, Test matches. Bring it. Should be a real ding-dong. Difficult to think of a series with two such potent attacking sides with bat and ball.

how highly is Root rated in Yorkybar land ?

Very highly. He's been getting runs in all forms and made a maiden double hundred in the championship last week.

deserves a crack then ?

or will the old excuse of him "being not ready yet" come into play ?

by the time he is "ready" he's too old and all the good things have been coached out of him.....

not that i'm cynical or anything ?

It's t20. Stick in players who are in form and let em have a swing.

He's a good kid, old head on his shoulders and all that. Nowhere near Test selection, or ODIs, but could be an option in the shortest form if there are several withdrawals.

good to see KP's 'compromise' being rejected.

Steven Croft in the t20 side, nice to see him getting some recognition.

England won toss and will bat.

Bit of an odd game so far. Strauss out for nothing after a delay to the start, but seemed a bit easy out there since that to the point at which Cook slams Steyn into the crowd - via a bit of an edge, admittedly.

Good day for England. Hopefully build on that tomorrow and knock up a good score.

Looking at tickets for the T20 match at Old Trafford. How can the ECB charge the same price for a T20 v SA as they did for a ODI against Australia?? Shocking.

So who do we try next at number 6?

I'll have a go - couldn't do any worse!!!

Fair enough. Report to the players entrance at Headingley on Thursday August 2 about 10am

Taylor would seem to be next cab off the rank.

Mind you, Nick Compton best fills the selection criteria.

QI klaxon. -10 points for Gilder

Because they're a bunch of money-grabbing c***s.

As for Bopara... I think I could stand there for 6 balls until one was straight or caught the edge of my bat. Bloody useless.

Got him! Classic set-up by the Burnley Bolt. Outswinger, outswinger, inswinger, out.

Well yes, that was my conclusion as well. Still, I'll probably go which is why they can charge that as they know people will go. Same with football.

WTF is going on at Lancashire???

Right, what have we learnt so far??

1. SA's bowling attack is better than ours.

2. SA's batting line up is better than ours.

3. A combination of 1 & 2.

Personally, I'm edging towards option 3, though I don't think there is much between the batting, except for our problem number 6 spot.....Our bowling though is looking a bit thin on options and toothless.....I've said it before, but an extra bowler and Prior upto 6 might have to be considered, especially if we lose this match.