Cricket Banter

Didn't Middlesex have the nickname of the 'Crusaders' at one stage? However, they removed it as it was deemed "offensive" in some quarters?

Freddy Flintoff is playing for St Annes today in a Northern League match against Penrith.

Nightmare for the opposition as Freddy gets 3 wickets today. Hope he gets a bat

I read that the women's game is getting a huge financial boost by having their own international T20 tournament similar to the IPL. Of course many of the top women players are now full-time professionals.

Lancs have decided not to play Flintoff in tonight's T20 Blast fixture against Yorks. Still some doubts over his fitness.

Former Bangladesh captain Mohammad Ashraful has been banned for eight years for match-fixing. A Bangladesh Cricket Board tribunal found the 29-year-old guilty of four charges of fixing matches in last year's Bangladesh Premier League. The tribunal also banned ex-New Zealand batsman Lou Vincent, 35, for three years for not informing authorities he was approached to fix BPL matches. Sri Lanka's Kaushal Lokuarachchi, 31, got 18 months for the same offence.

Ashraful's ban is backdated to May last year and he will also have to pay a fine of one million taka (approximately £7600). He became his country's youngest Test centurion in 2001 at the age of 17, and has played 23 Twenty20 internationals, 61 Tests, and 177 one-day internationals, including captaining his side between 2007 and 2009.

Two bits of cricket information:
Sad news that the former Worcestershire batsman and academy manager Damian D'Oliveira has died this morning after a battle against cancer. He was the son of England all rounder Basil D'Oliveira.

Good news that Jonathan Trott is playing county cricket for the first time today. He's playing for Warwickshire agains Notts.

R.I.P to Damian D'Oliveira. He never achieved the same level of success as his father did but he was a good honest sturdy batsmen for Worcestershire. His son is now on the Worcs playing staff as a leg-spinner.

I see that Australia and New Zealand are going to play a day/night test match against each other in Australia in their upcoming summer season.

Flintoff's in tonights squad to play again Warwickshire (Birmingham Bears) in tonight's T20 Blast. But rain is expected.