“It entertainsthe crowd,” said Pietersen, whowas a major contributor to England’s 36 sixes during last summer’s Ashes victory “It is great for the game. “If you are a professional you want to play against the best – Phil Taylor I hope to beat him.”. Barneveld, four times a winner of the BDO’s Lakeside World Championship, was considered a stalwart of the original governing body.
The Dutchman joins Phil Taylor, Colin Lloyd, Ronnie Baxter, Wayne Mardle, Roland Scholten and Peter Manley in the league which starts in Blackburn tonight “The time was right,” he said. Only a month after insisting he had no plans to switch the Dutchman was confirmed in the seven-man line-up for this year’s Premier League, which is backed by the PDC.

Raymond van Barneveld yesterday stunned the darts fraternity by crossing the rarely charted divide between the British Darts Organisation and the Professional Darts Corporation. See You Sometime upset a clutch of Gold Cup contenders, headed by Royal Auclair, to notch his first victory in 10 starts as the outsider of five and will be back on Saturday for the three-mile handicap. “He came out of that last run really well,” said trainer Seamus Mullins, “and has been bouncing around the yard thinking he is the bee’s knees.”Among the 11-year-old’s opponents will be Royal Auclair’s Paul Nicholls stablemate Silver Birch, the Grand National third favourite, who will be running over fences for the first time this season and the last time before Aintree.Silver Birch is scheduled to be ridden by Paddy Brennan; at Haydock, Graham Lee has landed the plum ride on another of Nicholls’ National contenders, L’Aventure.Chris McGrathNap: Cruise Director(Taunton 3.40)NB: Definite Approach(Taunton 4.10). Last year’s winner, Inglis Drever, won the Kingwell Hurdle on the way.Royal Shakespeare’s chief rivals on Saturday will be last year’s Triumph Hurdle winner Penzance, who has found the transition to senior company difficult so far, and the very good youngster Natal, who has the Supreme Novices’ Hurdle, on the first day of the Cheltenham Festival, as his target.The horse who pooped the party at Wincanton two weeks ago is to return to the scene of his social gaffe. He was off his food a little after Sandown but he worked well on Tuesday and is back in good shape.”The gelding has won twice at Grade 2 level and missed out on a top-level victory by a whisker as a novice, when he ran Brave Inca to a short-head at Punchestown.

He has earned £170,000 but as far as Gollings is concerned points mean prize money, for top spot on the Order of Merit is worth £250,000. Last time out he won at Sandown despite tacky conditions and even though, as far as the wider public are concerned, he has had a charisma bypass, he is a thoroughly admirable character. “He was not really at the top of his game then,” said Gollings, “and without disrespecting the second horse [the handicapper Alph] we should have beaten him a lot further.”He was never travelling like he can but he has run with great credit on unsuitable ground this season, especially at Haydock [fourth to Al Eile on heavy] Looking back, I thought that was a fantastic performance. And there are more showers forecast, so its all in the lap of the gods. But unless the meeting is off, he will run.”Royal Shakespeare’s last visit to the sharp, flat Somerset track, in November, brought a victory; the one before that, in last year’s Kingwell, a third place.