Why Cardiff?

100 days to go: That is until the start of the Ashes series in - yes, you had better believe it - Cardiff, the home of Welsh Rugby, er, Glamorgan County Cricket Club and without a Test match to its name until the Welsh came up with a stack of money.

Irresistible to the England and WALES Cricket Board. It has been know as the ECB for the last decade or so but, hey, they are now proud of their Welsh Heritage. Not a Welshman in the current England side either but that need not worry us. Perhaps Kevin Pietersen has a Welsh ancestor somewhere in his background.

The sweet smell of success could hardly be fainter even though England won in Barbados last night. It was one of their two "victories" this winter; the other followed the inability of John Dyson, the West Indies coach, to interpret Duckworth or Lewis.

(Look you - which is a very Welsh way of speaking - the last Welsh captain of England was Tony Lewis. Of course he is no relation to the Lewis who invented the mathematical way of deciding one-day matches it just shows that there is a good reason for holding the match in Wales.

Apart from the money, that is.

By the way - and I shall be counting down these days too - the number of days to the end of the Ashes match is 147.