Farcical but fun

Daily result: £126.79

Got involved in the Twenty20 between Surrey and Sussex today as well as taking a low stake interest on some of the evening's darts from the Las Vegas Desert Classic.

The cricket was a little beyond a joke. Absolutely no doubt in my mind that if the Sky cameras had not been there we would not have had a game. Though I'm sure the consideration of Surrey having to refund 18,000 tickets helped make the decision to play a five over shoot out in pouring rain.

Ok, so I made a profit on the game. Just under £20. But it was clearly too dark to play. And although watching Twenty20 in pouring rain has become a regular occurence this year the umpires were quite clear before the match that they would not start in the rain. Funny then how just before the cut off point to get a 5 over match in the conditions had improved enough to play. Despite the fact it was clearly raining as the first ball was bowled. Call me a cynic but three words. Sky. Ticket refunds.

Thing is it's just a matter of time before someone gets injured in those conditions. Mud covered players sliding around, fielders not moving for a ball because they simply don't see it, the wet ball slipping from the bowlers hands resulting in beamers. Some might say it's just not cricket!

Some of the quotes from the players were "the light was diabolical", "there's a safety issue", "it was awful to play in" and "we don't want the players to get injured". And that was from the winning captain. Surrey captain Mark Butcher, whose side lost, was clearly unhappy at having to play before even a ball was bowled.

Anyway, whatever the rights and wrongs we got an exciting 5 over slogfest. I made around £95 on the match winner market, but lost £75 on the completed match market. Great fun to trade from a selfish perspective. And some good banter on the Betfair cricket forum. But keep playing in those conditions and a player will get hurt. Not a question of if. Just when. Put it this way. If Freddie Flintoff was just back from injury, the England players had been released to the counties and it was Lancashire playing last night would Peter Moores be happy for him to play in those conditions? Exactly.

Spent a couple of hours in the evening doing some darts. Looked in on 4 matches doing each one to varying degrees. Won on 3 and lost on 1. The matches were very quick - the first to 6 legs. Not done the darts for a while so kept the stakes small and just got used to the speed of the markets again. Happy with the results. The loss was smaller than the three wins and I picked up a little less than £110. Hope to get another look in over the next few days.