Congratulations to James Hildreth, the first triple-centurion of the 2009 county season. Somerset has declared on 672 for 4 with Hildreth on 303 not out. His partnership with wicketkeeper Craig Kieswetter (150*) yielded 318* for the fifth wicket.

Meanwhile, Matthew Hayden is playing for a draw at Newlands.

Somerset currently 653 for 4 in reply to Worcestershire's 500 all out on day four of the County Championship Division One game at Taunton. James Hildreth 290 not out.

(Freddy Flintoff edges a DLF Maximum over slips off Bravo.)

"Today I'm announcing my retirement from representative cricket effective immediately."

- Matthew Hayden, 13.1.09 (source: ABC)

Simon Doull an Official IPL Commentator. What Is The World Coming To?

Tendulkar's career best T20 score of 69 is yet to be conquered as he completes a neat 59*(49) despite not achieving a single DLF Maximum.

The big question now... will the Change of Innings be longer than the Ten Over Toilet Break?

It's no longer a six. It's a DLF Maximum. And we had to wait until the eighteenth over of the Mumbai innings for the first DLF Maximum of the 2009 Not-so-IPL, tonked by Abishek Nayar off Andrew Flintoff.

Not content with that, Nayar clubbed another two DLF Maximums (or is that DLF Maxima?) off Flintoff later that over.

And if that's not enough, Mark Bloody Nicholas was the commentator.

Less than 24 hours ago, Jean-Paul Duminy made a tidy 3(8) in South Africa's 47-run loss to Australia at The Wanderers. Today it's an even tidier 9(7) for Mumbai before swatting a short ball back to Chennai's Manjpreet Singh Gony in the Indian domestic game at Newlands.

Ten overs down in this funereally slow game of Indian domestic cricket being played in Cape Town. The Cleveland Mumbai Indians are 64 for 1 against the Chennai Sub Super Kings. And now we have the 7.5 minute toilet break... the Modi Mafia call it a "tactical time out", but it's really just an excuse to squeeze an extra five minutes of ads into each innings. Here in Australia it means more prattle from Huddo and Campbo on One Digital (part of the soon-to-go-bankrupt Channel Ten empire).

What follows is a collection of live blog posts I conducted on the opening day of the 2009 Indian Premier League:

We're hours away from the opening of the 2009 Not-So-IPL. Australia has, shock horror, won an ODI against South Africa, and will choof off to the Home Of World Cricket which will host its first official one-day international next Wednesday.

The New South Wales government is a walking, talking, collective schemozzle. A government that refuses to listen to, or at times even acknowledge, the voters who put them there. A government that is happy to coast incompetently knowing they they have the security blanket of a fixed four-year term of office that it is nigh on impossible to cut short. And the brashness of mind to think they they can be re-elected in 2011 because the Libs would be even worse.