not as lucky as Brian

posted by John Winn

Like Brian I had hoped to see some club cricket over the weekend but Saturday morning brought an email from Tony Hutton to say that the game at New Rover was cancelled and a tweet from Knaresborough Forest to confirm that the outfield at The Union Ground was too wet to allow their friendly with Ripley to go ahead. So that was Saturday accounted for and with yesterday set aside for a visit to my wife's family in Derbyshire the first weekend of the season provided no cricket for inclusion in this posting. Today I had intended to travel to Chester le Street for the opening day of the first class season at The Riverside but a pessimistic weather forecast from BBC North East yesterday evening left me in little doubt that I would spend more time watching  rain than cricket so it's tuna sandwiches for lunch at home.

The forecast for the next few days is better which is good news for pcws and people holidaying in Upper Teesdale and as I fall into the latter category from tomorrow until Friday 'that's all good then'. My plans for Saturday involve a double header in WF10 with Castleford CC entertaining Goole in a pre-season friendly and a challenge match at Townville where Cleckheaton are the visitors: CYL champions against Bradford League winners.

Looking much further ahead Tony Hutton* has pointed me towards some interesting possibilities in Essex in June when ICC Europe Division 2 T20 tournament will be held over four days on grounds in Chelmsford, Southend and Billericay. The competing nations are Gibraltar, Germany, Isle of Man, Austria and Norway. These five will be joined by the winners of Group 3 who will play off in Spain at the end of this month. Contenders are Belgium, Finland, Greece, Israel and Spain. The first match in Essex will be at Chelmsford when the winners from Spain will face Gibralter with a ten o'clock start. The full fixtures for the tournament are available on the Austrian Cricket Association website.

Finally Thursday sees the publication of Wisden and the announcement of the five Cricketers of the Year for 2013. For a bit of fun two friends and I wrote down our five predictions and for what it is worth my five are Ryan Harris, Vivat Kohli, Joe Root, Charlotte Edwards and Moeen Ali. The predictions were made before the mayhem down under and without giving too much away the one we all have in common is Harris with Charlotte Edwards, Moeen Ali and Joe Root each receiving two votes. Have a go: you've got till Thursday.

*And Tony was tipped off by two men from Huddersfield.