County Cricket made its triumphant return last week to packed grounds up and down the country, oh wait. Well, county cricket returned. Week 1 bought us 5818 runs and 212 wickets, most of them taken by Sir James Anderson. And people seemed to pay attention. Surrey's viewing figures for day 1 surpassed 60,000, with 38,000 tuning in to watch Lancashire vs Northants. Truthfully, after the winter England fans endured, I’m sure there was some hate-watching going on, but hey, eyeballs are eyeballs. 

The standout performers included England's expelled seamer and podcaster Ollie Robinson, Craig Overton and James Anderson (remember him?), excelling in the early, gloomy parts of the season with the ball doing a serious amount on stodgey decks. England also find themselves with a complete surplus of wicket-keeper batters as Foakes, Rew, and Smith all shine.

Luckily, Mcullen and Stokes don’t watch Country Cricket, so there’s no need to worry about any of it. The winter brought to the fore England's selection process and methods, so it's going to be interesting to see whether the best players get a chance in the test side. Will it be a big summer for championship players, or will England continue to pick players with white-ball pedigree, potential and a decent golf handicap?

There’s young talent, and then there's Vaibhav Suryavanshi. It's hard to come up with a new take on the 15-year-old IPL wonderkid. I imagine he’s already a more talented writer than I am, just to top it off. Column inches have been filled, content quotas at breaking point, and he still can’t buy an energy drink in Tesco.

But then he walks out for Rajasthan Royals, looks Jasprit Bumrah, the world’s most terrifying operator, dead in the eye, and nonchalantly smokes his first ball over the ropes for six. Its sickening (for other countries and teams) to think he’s going to get better. His stats read like a Football Manager regen's fever dream: a strike rate of 228.28, scoring 452 runs from 12 matches, and a Ranji Trophy debut at age 12. 

Most of us at twelve were struggling to pick up a short handle bat, yet he was busy facing 90mph thunderbolts. Whether he’s the future of the format or just a temporary disruption of the natural order, one thing is certain: the kid is making everyone else look very, very lazy.

Jude Bellingham, the hundred, American investment partners Knighthead Capital. Three very different entities. Now, the holy trifecta of Birmingham Phoenix. So, Jude Bellingham. England’s golden boy, Real Madrid star now… part-owner of a Hundred side.

The previously unnamed investor in Warwickshire’s accounts? Yeah, it was him. A tidy 1.2% stake in Birmingham Phoenix, split evenly between Warwickshire and Knighthead Capital, setting him back a cool £800k-plus. Pocket change, presumably. Phoenix were valued at around £82m when Knighthead came in for 49% last year—The Hundred doing The Hundred things, money flying about, everyone nodding along.

And it kind of makes sense. Bellingham’s a Stourbridge lad, came through at Birmingham City before heading off to Dortmund at 17 and, well, the rest. Also played a bit of club cricket for Hagley back in the day, just to round out the CV. From Hagley to the Bernabéu to franchise cricket ownership. The question is, do you think he bats or bowls?