11.20am Morning everyone, writes Andy Bull at Hove, and another fine one it is too. The sun is out and the crowd is a little thicker for it being a Friday, with a real peach of a summertime afternoon in store. And they've got an England star, of kinds, at the wicket to entertain them too: Matt Prior is in position to shape the remainder of the game by extending Sussex's overnight 318 up towards something more intimidating. He's 22 not out as I type, keeping company with nightwatchman James Kirtley.
Prior has reportedly been discussing giving up the 'keepers gloves to concentrate on trying to win back his place in the England side as a batsman alone. Peter Moores has apparently been doing his best to dissuade him from doing that, but while Prior's scores of late are impressive enough (44, 62, 105, 59 and 50 in his last five innings) you do wonder whether he could push them up towards the kind of numbers that would demand his inclusion - hundreds rather than fifties - if he was freed of his 'keeping duties. As he thumps a glorious four square past point, I've a feeling that today he's going to make another sizeable score. The crowd also have the tantalising prospect of Luke Wright still to come, so all in all I'd say it's shaping up to be a fine day's play.
11.30am Good Morning from Chelmsford, writes Richard Rae, where we have a prompt start. Essex won the toss and, with the wicket only just discernible from the outfield, Mark Pettini has not surprisingly put the New Zealanders in. The local newspaper man says the groundsman has been instructed to leave more grass on the wickets here this season, 'to improve the carry', and it would appear he has taken those instructions to heart.
The first few overs, bowled by Alex Tudor - now on a full-time contract with Essex - and Tony Palladino, don't give the openers How and Redmond too much cause for alarm, but as the glaze comes off the ball, both are beginning to find more movement. All five of New Zealand's IPL returnees - Vettori, Mills, McCullum, Taylor and Oram - are playing, and after five overs, the score is 12-0.
12.30pm If you were Michael Vaughan, an England captain in need of a score ahead of the Lord's Test, exactly how would you want today to pan out, asks David Hopps at Headingley.
Yorkshire's championship match against Nottinghamshire was going nowhere after two days. Notts, 0-1 overnight in response to Yorkshire's 299, had minimal chance of victory so early in the season. Their priority would be to bat out the day, which if they achieved it would all but kill this match as a contest.
That would make Vaughan's task straightforward tomorrow. Survive the morning and Notts bowlers would lose interest. There would be no time constraints on his innings, no chance of a Yorkshire victory, just a simple task to accumulate enough runs to still the talk of his mediocre run of scores.
Were Yorkshire to bowl out Notts cheaply by tea, however, say for 180, Vaughan's task would be much more demanding. Yorkshire, with the permanent risk of heavy showers, would want Vaughan to press on more quickly, once he had established himself, and Notts' bowlers would be battling to avoid a potential defeat. The challenge for England's captain would be much harder.
Vaughan is committed to Yorkshire and he would prefer the chance to play a major batting role in the second innings to set up a Yorkshire victory. Successful players relish challenges; those who pray for easy options get nowhere.
Yorkshire only managed to nick out two Notts batsmen in the first 90 minutes. Morne Morkel took his first Yorkshire wicket when he had Adam Voges caught at the wicket, but Matthew Hoggard failed to follow up his wicket of Will Jefferson the previous evening despite an opening spell of vim and vigour.
The thought of how it would affect his own challenge later in the game was bound to be at the back of Vaughan's mind. After all, he has reached the time of life where the media is obsessed by his age. All of a sudden, you would think that he had been christened "Michael Vaughan, 33." This knee-jerk obsession with how old someone is is entirely unnecessary about 99 per cent of the time. If you are interested in reading about a sportsman or woman then you know roughly how old they are. There is no need to get all arithmetical about it.
I have a plan for all those troubled by potential ageism. Christen your children, "Jack Jones, 28." They will never look back. They will always be at their peak. Until they collapse in a heap anyway.
12.45pm New Zealand 44-1 off 22 overs, but it's not as turgid as it sounds, says Richard Rae. The ball is moving, and Tony Palladino bowled beautifully, pitching the ball up and letting it swing. His figures of 9-5-9-1 were, as they say, an accurate reflection of their worth, the wicket that of Jamie How leg before; after a series of outswingers, Palladino bowled one that went straight on and would have hit middle.
Aaron Redmond is on 28, all six fours behind square on the off side, four through third man, which as is the modern custom, is unoccupied. His dad played one test, against Pakistan in 1972, scored 107 and 56, and never played for his country again 'due to problems with contact lenses'.
1.05pm Well, Matt Prior has certainly clarified what his intentions are for the summer, writes Andy Bull. Having stroked his way to another nifty fifty he was caught after top-edging an especially belligerent pull shot. Walking off, he removed his helmet and wafted his bat to acknowledge the gentle applause, but as he completed the last few strides to the dressing room stairs his face reddened, and his look started to curdle. He then cursed, slapped his bat into a chair, rousing the ground with a loud crack, and slammed the dressing room door shut.
I've rarely seen a man so angry at getting out for 51. He obviously shares similar sentiments to the ones I suggested above: fifties aren't going to get him back in the England team as quickly as his ambition desires. It was Chris Jordan who took Prior's wicket, all the happier, and harder to face, for being given the Cromwell Road end to bowl from, down the slope towards the sea. Otherwise Butcher had been speeding through his overs by bowling Saqlain at one end and Afzaal at the other.
Sadly, Mike Gatting's 100 Great After Dinner Anecdotes turns out to be a terribly disappointing read. Which is a surprise. I was hoping it would be a goldmine of "and then it turned out that it wasn't a ball at all, but a Melton Mowbray Pork Pie" punchlines, but Gatt's repertoire doesn't get much more entertaining than the odd sly joke at Seb Coe's expense and that familiar old chestnut about what happened to the glass of water that Andy Flintoff had been "using to cool his knackers in", which you've probably heard already.
2.25pm Mclennan has a keen insight into the ways of journalism, notes David Hopps. That much I know, and fear. But I'm not really the one doing the talking. In the words of Our Great Leader, I'm listening and learning. And I can't believe how critical some people are of MP Vaughan. Personally, I would appoint him until the end of next summer - but then I hate committee meetings.
And, yes, AndyinBrum, I would be smarting about the "veteran" tag, were it not for the fact that I suspect I know the culprit... These blogs can be a bit incestuous at times.
Hoggard has hunted up the hill with no reward for half an hour after lunch. Now Goughie is having a trundle. I was just about to make a sarcastic joke along the lines of "If he doesn't smarten up, a punter will be wandering on to the outfield and offering to take him on in an episode of Beat the Star," and, blow me, if he didn't persuade Mark Wagh to slap one to gully. Wagh's 56 took 135 balls. It's that sort of game.
2.45pm Sussex's innings has come to a close, writes Andy Bull, their impressively deep batting finally running dry pretty much as soon as Jason Lewry came to the crease. They made Surrey work for it, a further sign that with Mushtaq missing Chris Adams isn't all too keen on the prospect of forcing through a result in the time available, an attitude typified by Robin Martin-Jenkins' fifty, which included just three fours.
If Matt Prior is proof that that it's not a bad thing to be talked about (as Mouth of the Mersey suggests, Prior was all too conspicuous behind the stumps), then Jon Batty surely demonstrates that it's even worse not being talked about. I've never understood why Batty, who averages 33 as an opening bat for Surrey, has never been talked about as a possible England keeper. Not that he should necessarily have the job, just that when England have dropped a good batsman because he couldn't keep (Prior) and a good gloveman because he couldn't bat (Read), then someone like Batty would surely find the middle ground between the two.
Anyway, he's surely missed his moment now and will have to content himself with struggles like the one he has ahead this afternoon against Sussex's attack. Martin-Jenkins has the new ball at the Cromwell Road end and even as I type he's launching into a loud lbw appeal.
3.45pm Graeme Swann and Chris Read have led an excellent Nottinghamshire rally at Headingley, writes David Hopps. At 115-5, Yorkshire were just beginning to scent a chance of victory. But Notts' batting could prove to begin at No6 this season - it certainly has today, with Read and Swann reaching a 100 stand in only 73 minutes from 129 balls.
Read has cut and pulled with verve. Cue the cries for England's most stylish wicketkeeper to be restored to his rightful place. Read + loyalty had minimal chance because his batting style is such that even a run of hundreds would not necessarily convince England's selectors that he can score runs at Test level. Read + ICL defection is simply a non-starter. His worth to Notts, though, is immense.
But the change of tempo was most obviously signalled by Swann, whose determination to ruffle the leg-spinner, Adil Rashid, was obvious from the moment he entered the attack. Rashid bowled four overs for 26, and Darren Gough huffed and puffed to no effect.
Read and Swann have added 118 in 24 and Notts are 233-5 at tea. For all the stalemate, it has been a good afternoon's entertainment and, in the main stand, where the sun never appears, a Yorkshire member has just dared to loosen an overcoat button in joyous celebration before remembering that it was, after all, only May 1 and carefully closing it again.
That, of course, is how cricket should be watched, however excited Mr Bull is by his Hove deckchair.
5.05pm James Marshall's patience throughout the first two sessions looks like its going to pay off with a century, reports Richard Rae, and quite possibly the No3 slot in the first Test against England at Lord's. With twin Hamish also making a ton, for Goucestershire, it's a great day for the brothers. Ross Taylor and Brendan McCullum, still in IPL mindset, came and went predictably quickly, but Marshall has found good support from Daniel Flynn. They've added over a hundred for the fifth wicket.
On the subject of England wicketkeepers, surely James Foster is now the best around? Paul Grayson certainly thinks so: "I know I'm biased," began the Essex coach, "but Goochie agrees." And he wouldn't be biased at all, of course.
5.15pm Maybe it's just the fuzzy torpor that comes with sunny Friday afternoons, but there is something so nostalgia-inducing about watching Mark Ramprakash bat, writes Andy Bull. I was surprised about how the blog readers railed against the idea of his ever playing for England again - I'd assumed that all county cricket fans were romantics by nature, but then unlike Hoppsy I by-passed the flat-cap school of hard-knocks to make straight for my deckchair.
Ramprakash will be the last of the great county runmakers. As Patrick Kidd wrote on cricinfo recently, any player who is as good as Ramprakash nowadays will spend too much time playing too few games for England to ever get near 100 hundreds. Marcus Trescothick, for example, has only scored 28 first-class hundreds, and while Alastair Cook is young enough to have time to get close, he's also too talented to play enough innings to do so. Ramprakash then is the last of his kind.
6.15pm Play has stopped for the day and it's time for me to toddle to the station, says Andy Bull. Surrey finished on 164-2, Ramprakash 66 and with his old mucker Butcher (the finest third-wicket pair in the country?) alongside him on 10. There's no chance of a result tomorrow sadly, but I'm sure it'll still be sunny regardless. Not that I'll be here to find out.
Sitting here squinting into the sun, watching him work through his familiar routine of ducking down in a squat and bouncing back up twice before taking strike, watching the unflustered orthodoxy of his strokes, it throws my mind into a weird reverie for things I never saw in the first place, for players, places and matches that I read about in old Almanacks. I should probably stop rambling now before I lull myself into sleep and wake up drooling on my shirt.
