THIS IS WHAT YOU DO RICKY ... Tractor, that fine exponent of Twenty20 cricket deems to give a certain Ricky Ponting a few pointers!

Twenty-twenty cricket took almost complete control of July, but Somerset didn't go on to make the new quarter-final stages of the competition. Losses at Edgbaston to Warwickshire (7 wkts), at home to Glamorgan (8 wkts), a no-result point at Bristol, and victories in the final 2 home fixtures against Worcestershire (34 runs) and Northants (4 runs), meant Somerset finished fourth in their table, but ahead of those one-day kings, Gloucestershire.

Somerset have enlisted the assistance of Ricky Ponting while Jamie Cox recovers from a nasty bout of 5 and a half week flu. Ricky was determined to to gain an insight into this format of the game since the announcement of the England versus Australia 20:20 game for next year. I can assist him here. What's really required from an Australian perspective is a thoughtful, methodical, slow but steady build-up of the innings for the first 19 overs, then maybe play just a couple of shots. From an English perspective, providing Ricky heeds my advice, they should try to keep Ponting in giving him as much of the strike as possible, and get the others out!

I thoroughly enjoyed my recent visit to Scarborough. In the championship game, Nixon returned to the side and bowled rather quickly, and rather accurately, producing match figures of 37.5 overs, 11 maidens, 11 wickets for 124 runs. Dutch was fantastic also with match figures of 32 overs, 4 maidens, 8 wickets for 113 runs. Both bowlers taking five 2nd innings wickets. Ponting & Francis Jnr scored their first Somerset centuries, and Burns & Blackwell both scored quick 70s giving Somerset a useful 451 in reply to Yorkshire's 296. Despite useful contributions from the Yorkshire Matt Wood and Darren Lehman, Somerset secured their first championship win of the season (and before lunch on the third day) by a massive 10 wickets! I took pity on the pavilion barman and endeavoured to make up for his lost bar-trade over the next day and a half in just a short afternoon, which I think I achieved rather well.

It was a wet and windy start to Sunday, and the weather wasn't too good either. Somerset produced another good performance with the bat, but just couldn't defend it with the ball, Yorkshire holding their nerve managed to spoil Somerset's clean-sweep in this series.

Unfortunately the postponed tsl game against Worcestershire was hastily rearranged for last Monday. This meant a long journey back from Scarborough and straight into the next game the very next day. Despite Somerset's good start with the ball, Worcester amassed a testing total, and after a promising start to our reply from our top order, our lower-order batters were always going to struggle in extremely dark conditions.

Following the four-day fixture against an unbeaten Sri Lankan 'A' touring side last week, Somerset take on the Sussex Sharks who are without key players for today's game: Garth Le Roux has retired to his native France, Jon Snow has too many Channel 4 newsreading commitments, and Paul Parker was last seen heading north in a pink Rolls Royce licence plate FAB1, muttering something like "Yus, m'lady".

Today I go with lucky colour maroon, lucky number 14, and lucky sunglasses, the 'Ray-Ban Wayfarer II with G15 prescription lenses to correct astigmatism'. Very exclusive designer wear indeed.

Wake up, put the knitting down for a minute or two, put the pasty on the plate, put the pint to one side, turn that blinking mobile phone off, and give the lads some applause and vocal support and we'll rediscover the art of winning one-day games as well.

COME ON SOMERSET!!!