The Championship season gets underway on Friday night and today is the day I show my hand. I have opted to sell £30 of Burnley points at 70.5 and £30 of Reading at 70. I have also bought £30 of Bristol City at 70 and also £30 of Norwich City at 66. If I make money from these four bets, I’m going on holiday… to Ghandi!

Talking of no hope… the prices are still not out on the next Pakistan Test and more importantly, individual’s match runs for the second test. I’m looking to sell Collingwood this time around as I think I got lucky last week.

I got bored in the evening and decided to buy £7 of Nash (Sussex) runs at 44 in-running against Lancashire in the live game. As soon as I sat back down to watch him bat after placing the bet, the adverts were on, so I knew there had been a wicket. In fact, I knew Nash was out before the pictures even returned. What a waste of £210…

Nothing to report on the punting front… spent the day in London. Although, I did overhear a great conversation between a young child and her mother on the train on the journey up. The mother was reading a quote from Ghandi which was part of an advert on the wall… ‘live as if every day is your last’. The child asked who Ghandi was and the mother said, it’s not a person, it’s a country... it’s their national motto’. The poor girl has no hope!

Pakistan resumed the fourth day of the test match on 15-3 and were soon out for a pathetic 80 – I didn’t get time to sell any of their batsman. Anyway, we spent the day at my Granny’s 85th birthday party!

Anyway, the main betting focus of the day was the eagerly awaited run of Richard Hannon’s Whodathought in the Nursery at Newbury at 3.50pm. Regular readers will remember Hannon put this one up to back next time at the recent stable visit… well, this was next time. I backed it (£20 buy on the index at 18) and several members of my family did too. The pressure was on, I needed to deliver… Whodathought needed to deliver.

Well, if delivering is finishing 7th of 13, he delivered alright. My Uncle wanted his £30 back… I want my… I better not say in case any of them read this!

Pakistan resumed the day on 147 for 9 trailing by 207 runs, although they were importantly eight runs shy of avoiding the follow-on. I had mixed emotions about whether I wanted them to bat again and be all out again quickly. Yes, it would have been great for my sell of Cook and Butt, but I was keen for Collingwood to have another bat. Either way, it didn’t matter as Gul smashed it all over the place and took Pakistan to 182. England then took the field and amazingly Cook failed again… this time for 12. That meant a match total of just 20 runs, so my £7 sell at 75 yielded a profit of £385! England were soon 72 for 5 and annoyingly Collingwood fell for just one run! That meant he finished the match with a total of 83 which was 11 runs more than the level at which I bought him for £8 – a profit of £88 for those with worse maths skills than me.

That terrific start to the day was then hit by the terrible run of Swiss Dream in the Nursery at Newmarket. My £15 buy of David Elsworth’s runner at 18 on the index resulted in a £270 loss. Then, I decided sell £10 of Midday at 28 on the index for the Nassau Stakes – apparently she was badly jarred up last time and her main targets for the season were elsewhere. Well, she bolted up and another £220 headed in the wrong direction. Thankfully, Pausanias (tipped up to you by yours truly a fortnight ago) won the maiden and £280 headed back in my direction.

I turned over to see Butt walking having been caught by Collingwood for just 8 and Pakistan were 10 for 1. More importantly, he had scored only 9 runs in the match which meant that my £7 sell of his match runs at 75 had produced a whopping £462 profit… bring on the next test!

Collingwood added just one run to his overnight score of 81 which wasn’t the ideal start to the day. However, he was just one of the six English wickets to fall for just 17 runs in an embarrassing 75 minutes. The conditions were obviously tough and I was desperate for a Butt (£7 sell of his match runs at 75) failure. My prayers were answered and Anderson had him caught behind for just one run.

I flicked over to watch Duncan finish out of the frame in the opener which was extremely annoying as I had toyed with the idea of selling him on the index. Anyway, I moved on and bought £10 of Pastoral Player at 13 and £10 of Joseph Henry at 6 in the next. Pastoral Player only managed to beat 6 of the 27 runners home, but Joseph Henry won! Dandy Nicholls’ charge had suddenly put the Glorious back in to Goodwood. It all meant a £310 win on the race which more than made up for the Duncan miss.

My one horse to back at Goodwood yesterday was Oratory and even though he was backed off the boards in the finale, Richard Hannon’s runner could only finish third… trust me to pick just about the only beaten horse from that stable all week!

Anyway, I hit the ground running by selling £30 of Group Therapy at 0 in a match bet against Triple Aspect in the big sprint at 2.45pm. The reason for the large stake is that there isn’t that much volatility in a 5 furlong sprint and there wasn’t going to be that much between them at the business end.

That’s if both jockeys stayed in the saddle! Sadly, Liam Jones slipped out of the Triple Aspect’s side door (not his back door thank god!) and cost me £360 in the process. Things got worse in the next when Age of Aquarius pulled up dramatically with a career-ending injury. It was an almost Goodwood-ending blow for me and I was suddenly £680 down on the day. It was time to draw stumps…

Speaking of which, thank god for Test cricket! My £7 sell of Cook runs at 75 was in great shape as he had fallen for just 8 in the first innings. However, even better news surrounded the fact that Collingwood (£8 buy at 72) finished the day 81 not out with England 331 for 4. Perhaps, I’ll just watch the cricket tomorrow and give Goodwood a miss… there ain’t nothing Glorious about it!