Central contracts are...

"They're a great bunch of lads. It's good fun."

Thus spake the bard of Chelsea, Kevin Pietersen when asked about his future plans. His contract with Hampshire runs out at the end of the season, but the likelihood of Hampshirer fans being distraught at his departure is minimal.

In the past four seasons he has played just eleven matches for the county, while in his six years at Hampshire, one of the best batsmen in the world has played just two T20 fixtures. It is an appearance rate that suggests Bob Willis was an ever-present at Warwickshire, so we can look forward to Pietersen moaning about county cricket in fifteen years time…

It's something that saddens me about modern cricket, that the fans of counties who spend a lot of time and money in developing young players hardly ever see them when they reach the pinnacle of their careers. Take Nottinghamshire - how much do they now get out of Stuart Broad and Ryan Sidebottom? I know they didn't develop the players concerned, but they are their players and sightings are as frequent as those of the Loch Ness monster. I'd love to see some of our talented youngsters eventually get national recognition, but the prospect of waving them farewell until they lose form or fall from grace doesn’t appeal at all.

I'm not sure where Pietersen goes from here. His comments regarding his domicile in Chelsea would suggest that Surrey or Middlesex might be his favoured county, but I'm not sure what any side would get out of the deal, apart from a token appearance or two each summer. It is like owning a precious book that you have to keep in an acid-free box, or a painting that cannot be allowed into the light in case of deterioration. In short, it is pointless. Maybe bragging rights comes into it ("Kevin Pietersen plays for us") but is that enough? It might give you a little more interest in the affairs of the national side, but for the parochial-minded among us, that's not worth all that much.

Meanwhile the Chief Executive of the Professional Cricketers Association has said that players are "not sure of the point" of the experimental 2nd XI competition in which we've reached the final. This comes at a time when Cricket Australia plan to play their Ford Ranger Cup competition in a split-innings format. While loath to knock anything in which we've done well, it does seem to be adding further unnecessary complication to the game and is little more than a gimmick. A case in point was yesterday, when Chesney Hughes was unbeaten on 70 and presumably seeing it like a football when the innings closed. Twenty overs later he had to start again on the same score, but needing to play himself in. I don’t see the logic in it.

Finally, the realisation dawned last night that I'm going to miss most of our game against Nottinghamshire on Thursday as our lovely, clever daughter is picking up five subject awards at her High School prize-giving, followed by drinks and nibbles with the staff. I don't suppose it would be deemed acceptable for them to post Cricinfo score updates via a data projector during the ceremony?

In which case I'll see the score at the end of the game, while keeping my fingers crossed that we bowled them out for 135 and knocked off the runs inside 12 overs to win by ten wickets, thus boosting our net run rate.

I don't ask for much, do I?