Tino...Best?

Thanks to Chris for the enlightening piece on Yorkshire's new fast bowling recruit (see comments, previous article), which suggests that life will not be dull around Headingley this season...

Anon also suggests that Surrey and Sussex will be the teams to beat, as I said the other night. They are not unbeatable though. Sussex may be short in batting and will miss Ed Joyce for the first two months at least, though will again hope that the admirable Murray Goodwin scores heavily. Their bowling is steady, without being unduly penetrative, though they will hope for better from Monty Panesar than he showed in South Africa this winter. Much will depend on Yasir Arafat as overseas player.

As for Surrey, they received a huge blow today when the Indian Cricket Board revoked the clearance of Piyush Chawla to play county cricket, so that he is not overworked. The decision has also prevented Sehwag going to Northamptonshire, so there will rightly be some unhappy people in those counties tonight. They have some good players, but both Chris Tremlett and Andre Nel had major injuries in 2009 and there appears little quality bowling in reserve.

As for the rest, Glamorgan surely cannot continue to rely on Robert Croft for wickets, while Gloucestershire's batting needs to be much better than last year for them to be serious contenders. Matthew Hoggard will need untapped powers of captaincy to turn Leicestershire into a strong side, and they are already set to lose Andrew McDonald for at least part of the season. Middlesex are too reliant on Owais Shah and may lose key players to the England set up.

Northamptonshire have David Sales restored to fitness and Mal Loye back, but have lost Van der Wath, Wessels and now Sehwag. That just leaves Worcestershire, who have lost almost all of their big names over the winter and will need a miracle to be competitive this time around.

Every season throws up a surprise package but Derbyshire have every possibility of being in the Championship mix this season. As I said last weekend, with a little luck from the weather, with umpiring decisions and in holding catches I will be disappointed with anything less than a top four place.

There. I've said it now...