12.20pm: Good morning to everybody from The Riverside, where Durham made a great start against Notts, writes Richard Rae. Chris Read won the toss and chose to bat, and cannot have been overly pleased to see Will Jefferson play lazily across the line at the sixth ball of the day - bowled by Callum Thorp - miss, and be (rightly) given out leg before. Thorp is again standing in for Graham Onions, but is a very different sort of bowler - much slower than the whippy Onions. Mark Davies opened the bowling at the other end - Dale Benkenstein keeping Steve Harmison back. Graeme Swann has started well though, clipping Thorp off his toes for a one bounce four over square leg.
The ground, with temporary seating for the upcoming one-day international filling the usual gap, looks every inch a Test venue - and it's a very happy place right now, because Davies has just bowled Mark Wagh for three. Ball came back slightly and squeezed through the gate, essentially - poor technique on the part of the batsman. He got something on it, but the bat was coming down at a distinct angle. Notts 11-2.
12.45pm: Morning from a sunny Bristol, writes Paul Coupar, where Gloucestershire have been put in to bat and have reached 30 for two in the ninth over.
For Yorkshire Matthew Hoggard is back for his first game after a broken thumb three weeks ago. Poor Hoggy isn't really at home in the one-dayers and recently said he was "allergic to the white ball". He hasn't come out in a rash or a sneezing fit yet, but he did send down a wide first ball, as his first over was milked for 10 runs. Things have got better since then. He even has a wicket - a flying catch at point redeeming a long-hop.
Hoggard stiffens a Yorskhire attack missing several hamstring victims. For Gloucestershire, Steve Kirby's sore shoulder keeps him out. But Jon Lewis plays.
Lewis was part of Gloucestershire's team who bossed this competition round the turn of the century, winning four times in six years. Things have slipped a little since then. But this year they sailed into the quarter-finals; Yorkshire squeaked past Derbyshire in the north group.
1.10pm: Notts, as Lou would put it, are in a bit of a kerfuffle, writes Richard Rae. Just as Swann and Adam Voges were beginning to rebuild the innings, Voges pushed a Thorp delivery to Neil McKenzie's right at mid-on and set off. McKenzie picked up on the dive, twisted in mid-air and threw down the single stump visible to him. Match-winning fielding. Next ball, Swann pushed forward - again at Thorp - to a ball that just came back at him, and was leg before - again, technique exposed.
The pitch appears to be doing no more than any pitch does in the first hour, ie giving the bowlers just a little, but Notts are 40-4 off 14 overs. Having said that, Benkenstein has brought himself on, ahead of either of the Harmisons. Clearly he feels medium pace is going to be more effective on this track than quick stuff. Patel and Shafayat now have the job of building some sort of platform.
1.15pm: Ravi Bopara has chosen his moment to dust off the coaching manual, writes Lawrence Booth at Grace Road. After Leicestershire's Kolpak duo of Dillon du Preez and Garnett Kruger reduced Essex to 37 for three on a seaming pitch, Bopara - watched by the national selector Geoff Miller - struck six successive balls spread across two overs for four. The second of them was all-run, which simply emphasised how well he was timing the ball, and after 15 overs Essex had recovered to 87 for three, with Bopara's support coming from Ryan ten Doeschate. The shot of the morning? A sumptuous straight-drive from Bopara off Nadeem Malik. His return to international cricket is surely a question of when, not if.
2pm: Jeremy Snape has just come on to bowl at Grace Road, writes Lawrence Booth. I only mention this because Snape has not actually sent down a delivery for Leicestershire since last year and was not expected to represent his county until the Twenty20 Cup, which starts a week today. He has, of course, just returned from India, where he was a crucial cog in the back-room wheel of Shane Warne's Rajasthan Royals, who won the Indian Premier League on Sunday. This is Snape's benefit year and he is about to stage a bash at the National Space Centre called the Moon Ball - in honour of his legendary slower one that has made a monkey of many a batsman over the years. Sadly for Snape, Ravi Bopara saw him coming, and duly lofted his fifth delivery over midwicket for six. It was the second maximum of this gem of an innings: the first, off Leicestershire's slow left-armer Claude Henderson, brought up a 43-ball fifty that also included 10 fours, and he is currently making batting look very easy indeed. After 30 overs, Essex have recovered well in east Midlands sunshine to reach 167 for four, with Bopara on 73.
2.10pm: This match could - and probably should - already be decided, writes Paul Coupar. Gloucestershire were on their last legs at 63 for six. Their last recognised batsman, Chris Tyalor, drove in the air towards mid-off. A rosy-faced Darren Gough stooped low - and the ball spilled out. A simple chance really.
Since then Taylor, so thin that a good puff of wind would blow him over, has almost decapitated Richard Pyrah in his follow through with a straight drive and sent a huge six ricocheting among the cars at long-on. After 30 overs Gloucestershire were 105 for six. Their noisy supporters see a way back into the game, with runs - as well as booze - flowing.
3.30pm: Notts close on 188 all out, writes Richard Rae, a total dependent almost solely on a remarkable innings by Samit Patel. He scored 114 at just about a run a ball (his first 50 came off 77); no other batsman scored more than 18. The occasional rush of blood aside, he played beautifully - used his feet to the spinner, Gareth Breese, to hit him straight and over cover, at the other end standing still and murderously flat-batting Steve Harmison through mid-off. May not be enough - it shouldn't be, anyway - but he's single-handedly given Notts a chance here. The heavy roller is on the pitch between innings
3.35pm: Well, that was really quite breathtaking, writes Lawrence Booth at Grace Road. Ravi Bopara has just finished with an unbeaten 201 off 138 deliveries for Essex against Leicestershire and may never hit the ball as cleanly again in his life. He smashed 18 fours and 10 sixes, most of them to leg, and ran like a whippet, especially while he was adding 190 in 28 overs with James Foster. Trying to pick out a highlight is the stuff of needles and haystacks, but his fourth 50 came up in a flash off 16 balls, five of which disappeared over the ropes. Only three others have scored double-centuries in this competition, but only Ali Brown (268 for Surrey against Glamorgan at The Oval in 2002) did so against a first-class county. I was there that day too, when the leg-side boundary towards the gasometer was on the small side. The ropes today were brought in too, but most of the hits would have been six even if they hadn't been. The reality is that this innings was the equal of Brown's, not least because Essex at one stage were 37 for three. They have finished, almost unbelievably, with 350 for five. If Leicestershire beat them, expect more hyperbole.
4.45pm: Durham are 57-1 off 11 at the Riverside, and firmly in control in pursuit of their target of 189, writes Richard Rae. The Dynamos - surely not a name that will ever trip off the tongue - lost Phil Mustard for 14, caught at first slip off the bowling of Charlie Shreck, but Michael Di Venuto and Will Smith - formerly of Notts, of course - are going along nicely. Assuming Notts lose, Chris Read is probably going to come in for a lot of stick from their supporters for batting first. The pitch certainly did a bit in the first hour, as it was always likely to after 24 hours under cover, but just about all the Notts batsmen contributed towards their own dismissals. So poorly have Notts been batting of late, it may have been a defensive decision on Read's part, ie he was hoping to take the pressure off by not having a target to chase.
5pm: Gloucestershire have been bowled out for 201, writes Paul Coupar. In ruins at 50 for six, the rapid rebuilding work came in bright 50s from Chris Taylor and the wicketkeeper Steve Adshead.
Yorkshire are 59 for one in the 15th over of the reply and should still win. But there's a lot of hard work to be done between now and then. Jon Lewis is not making it easy. Chatting to Darren Gough for a high-powered piece about cricket trousers (those new ones with patches for shining the ball) I wish him good luck with the chase. "I think we might need it," he replies. For the record Goughie quite likes the special bowling trousers, but not the fielding ones that help you slide better. "I'm not much into sliding. I'm 38 next birthday."
5.50pm: At least Leicestershire haven't curled into a ball after Ravi Bopara's fireworks, writes Lawrence Booth. And critics of a county sometimes referred to as Kolpakshire may be interested to learn that the runs are being scored by two Englishmen - the 22-year-old Matthew Boyce, who was born in Cheltenham, and the 37-year-old Paul Nixon, who sometimes appears to inhabit a different planet. Things looked bleak when Alex Tudor removed HD Ackerman with the second ball of the Leicestershire reply and then added his South African compatriot Boeta Dippenaar, also caught behind, soon after. When James Allenby was caught at slip off Graham Napier for six, Leicestershire were 53 for three and Essex had one foot in the last four. They should still get there, but after 25 overs Leicestershire were hardly dead and buried on 141 for three. For those who think these things significant, Essex were 140 for four at the same stage. The question is: can anyone do a Bopara?
7.15pm It was always hard to view the Leicestershire reply as anything other than a prolonged awkward silence after the orgiastic performance of Ravi Bopara, and so it proved, writes Lawrence Booth. Matthew Boyce and Paul Nixon briefly excited the locals by adding 104 for the fourth wicket, but lightning tends not to strike twice on sunny days in the east Midlands. For the sake of journalistic balance, I should reveal that Bopara's first ball this afternoon went for five leg-side wides and that he also managed to drop Nixon at backward point. But then he returned to bowl Claude Henderson and Nadeem Malik with successive balls and was a play-and-miss by Garnett Kruger away from wrapping up the match with a hat-trick. By that stage Geoff Miller had packed up and left. It's fair to assume he had seen enough.
7.30pm: Yorkshire have won at Bristol, with six wickets and five overs to spare, writes Paul Coupar. Gloucestershire fought back hard from 50 for six, eking out 201 and applying a typical squeeze in the field. But it needed something of Lazarus-like proportions - and in the end they couldn't manage it.
