Woe behind

Alex Gidman's match-saving double of 93 and 142 against Surrey was the summer's brightest news to date: at last the England A captain of two winters past was free of the physical woes that have dogged him this past year like angry bees.

That match, moreover, marked another small step on the road to reaffirmation for another very able young batsman. One of Gidman's accomplices in the memorable third-innings rearguard against Harbhajan Singh and co was James Pearson.

Three winters ago in Adelaide the left-handed Pearson helped England gain a shock win in an Under-19 Test. But after three games in 2002 he waited until this May for his next Championship appearance. A gritty 68 in a vain struggle to avoid an innings mauling by Nottinghamshire bespoke a fellow eager to make amends. That his next half-century came during a similarly merciless drubbing by Warwickshire said much for the fire within.

Gloucestershire's player/coach Mark Alleyne noted last summer, when discussing the declining Anglo-Caribbean presence on the circuit, that Pearson, who learnt his classically inclined, unhurried style at Bristol West Indies CC, had become isolated in the dressing room. "He's struggling. He comes in, puts the CD on and he's just waiting for someone to say, `That's rubbish.' And he loves Lara and the West Indies. The more he goes on about them, the more he's going to be isolated." It was clearly an attempt at a wake-up call; let the ends justify the means.

Moment of the month A Craig Spearman-led totesport charge which made mincemeat of Middlesex's 333.