Read it and weep, England selectors!

Well it's not been a bad start to the season for the man who can't bat: two matches, two unbeaten centuries - 234 runs for once out. Even if Chris Read bags a pair in the next game he will still have a first-class batting average of over seventy. It looks like he intends to install himself at the top of the averages and pee on the England selectors from a great height, and good for him. I've no idea why they have been so prejudiced against Read. (Well, I did have one theory, but then he got married.) Maybe they just believe the (totally unfounded) rumours that he is some kind of mug. Rumours like the one that he bought the bat he was using today on eBay, thinking it used to belong to WG Grace, only to find out that it actually belonged to WC Fields...

Notts 417-8 (Bicknell 95, Warren 93, Will Smith 60, Read 102no) drew with Yorkshire.