Bugger! 150 would have been interesting. Oh well unless rashid produces his best ever spell the title has gone. Been a good year though and Ashraf looks a find.

Both Yorkshire and Hampshire appear to be doing their best to gift their visitors the win they needed to stay up, not that there's anything suspicious going on there mind...

Kent 10/2

Kent win 90-6 but will probably still go down.

Shame Yorks could not have got another 50/60, it might have been close.

A bloke in my office went up this morning, said we were too impatient in our batting, and though the ball was doing a bit we should have done a bit better.

30-40 more runs could have made all the difference, but it's still been a very positive season.

Somerset need 180 in 17 overs at Durham to win it.

If there's a couple of batsmen that could pull it off, then it's Trescothick and Kieswetter.

Or maybe not, both out!!

Notts going for it on the bonus points, they've hit 400 and declared, now have 18 overs to take 3 wickets to do it - as long as Somerset don't knock the runs off, which is looking highly unlikely (42/3 after 10).

Well, Notts have done it, although reducing this not even d Lancs side to 11-3 is hardly the achievement of the day....

watching the yorkshire batting performance this morning was very disappointing, as the results come in and it looks like a win could have been a championship it gets worse - the runs were there for the taking this morning as Kent's 3 and 4 showed, there was no patience and poor shot selection from yorkshire

a worthy ovation for the side as they left the field though, only one defeat before today and that was after a decleration trying to force a result, last chance to see Rudolph play too

Somerset take the draw

Notts win the title as they get the 3 wickets needed to gain a bowling bonus point and means a draw leaves them tied with Somerset but they have won more games (7 to Somerset's 6)

Chilts should've declared after the 2nd wicket went down ...

Well they can't do it for themselves but this season Lancashire have proved they can win the championship, for Nottinghamshire....

What for, finishing second in every competition?? [size=50Hopefully anyway[/size

If only Yorkshire had batted sensibly today they could very easily have sneaked the title

An excellent county championship season though with a top draw finish too.

Yorkshire have agreed to release Jacques Rudolph from the last year of his contract apparently - that's a lot of runs we'll need to somehow replace next season.

Any reasons why? Is he going to try and get back into the SA squad?
What about Sayers, has he got the capabilities to bounce back and get runs for you?

Still no concrete news on where Owais Shah and Ryan Sidebottom are going. Would be good signings for whoever they sign for.

I think that's his intention, he wants to give it another shot and it means that if he came back to Yorkshire short-term he'd be an overseas player rather than a Kolpak.

Sayers never got back into the side after losing his place through injury as we were going OK batting wise. He's got the ability, it's whether he kicks on in the same way Adam Lyth has done.

I'd love to have Sidebottom back, particularly now he's given up his international career. Whether I would be prepared to give him the 3 year deal he wants though is another matter...

Fair do's to him. Says on the BBC report that he and his wife never settled in England too which is a bit odd considering he was at Yorkshire for 4 years?!



Lyth has only done it this season though hasn't he? What if this season was a flash in the pan, that would be a huuuuge amount of runs missing.



I think the 3 year deal thing is the deal-breaker for everyone so far to be honest. Will his body hold out for another 3 years? Will quitting England mean he lasts 3 years? I have my doubts.

Yorkshire have turned down the chance to sign Wasim Jaffer (32) and are probably looking at a home grown replacemnet for Rudolph, and it seems likely we'll sign an overseas bowler rather than a batsman. We're also going to confirm the signing of Ryan Sidebottom in the next week.

According to the Yorkshire post.

Hope so, it will be nice to see Ryan finish his career off well for Yorkshire.

Wonder if we'll be reduced to "Third choice Tino" standards again, or if we can find someone who isn't either injured or needed for international duty?

There's so much international cricket played these days it's hard for any county to get a decent overseas player,and if they do the can only stay for a few weeks.Much better years ago when the likes of Lancs had a player of the calibre of Wasim Akram for the whole season.

I think the best bet for an overseas player these days is the likes of Chris Rogers. Someone who isn't going to get selected for their country so you get them all season but who is bringing undoubted quality into the squad.
I'd much rather have one lesser/less stellar player in for the full season than 2 or 3 bit-part players for chunks of the season.

Having said that, South Africa have a fairly light summer next year so maybe Lancs should look at getting Ashwell Prince in for a full season?

IIRC originally Yorkshire had Ryan Harris lined up, who would have been a cracking signing.

He then broke into the Australian side prior to the series against Pakistan this summer and was supposed to be replaced by Daryl Tuffey.

Tuffey then broke his hand ruling him out of the start of the season, so Yorkshire went further into the bargain bin and dredged up probably the least effective overseas signing they've had for quite some time.

He was getting consistently outbowled by every other seamer, even kids like Hannon-Dalby.