Do you know your county cricket alphabet?

Dog Four-legged creature that generally accounts for 50% of the crowd on a foggy third day at an out-ground in the middle of nowhere. Despite their attendance alongside a foolhardy owner being reported in every single newspaper every single April, cash-strapped clubs seem to have been slow to pick up on the possible revenue stream of selling canine season tickets.

Ramprakash, Mark County stalwart who recently scored his 631st hundred on his 57th birthday. A rare breed of cricketer who you watch hoping he gets a hundred so beautiful it makes your knees weak, then gets given out caught behind off his toe so that he explodes with apoplectic rage. There is genuinely nothing funnier than Ramps with steam pouring out of his ears. Dropped and recalled at least 40 times by England, he has a career on the speaking circuit as part of a Waldorf and Stadler routine with Graeme Hick to look forward to when he finally decides that enough is enough.

Rain In most outdoor professions, rain means that you lose out on money. Building a house? Sorry, that needs to put on hold - go hungry this week. Landscape gardener? No work for you this April. County cricketers are a different breed, though. When the inevitable rain comes lashing down, they get to spend a month indoors, sleeping and playing cards in a lovely warm pavilion while still picking up a nice paycheck at the end of the month.

Kolpak Odd rule that broadly means that anyone can play for anyone as long as they have a British passport/British wife/once received mail with an English postmark. Contrary to popular belief, you actually need to qualify to be able to play for England. Luckily for the money-grabbing ambitious cricketer, the route to county cricket is a little easier. Jacques Rudolph, for example, has changed nationality so many times that the only possible conclusion is that he was muddled when he saw that a World XI has been selected in 2005.

Twenty20 Life force of English cricket, it actually accounted for 97.6% of Essex's total revenue in the 2011 season. Despite this, English fans look down their noses at the IPL as it has "too much money" and "is not proper cricket". Tell that to the beered-up workers who stroll down after work, throwing notes at overpriced Cornish pasties and watered-down lager while bellowing casual abuse at the poor sap who has to field at fine leg. The "real" county fan sits in the corner, moaning that his ale cost more than £1.20, while methodically and deliberately marking each and every dot on his scorecard.