Rumour mill working overtime

Leeds is an affluent city which has had more than £1bn invested in its centre in the last decade. Where there are riches there are rumours and this old ground has been a turning mill for two days.

First Yorkshire members, called up next Thursday to vote on borrowing £10m to save the county club, were astonished to read in a local paper that Mick Jagger, who does have family connections with this city, was about to invest millions. Geoff Cope, the Yorkshire chairman, shook his head in bewilderment: "I would like to think it's true, but it is the first I've heard of it.''

Alas, it turned out to be a hoax perpetrated by one national tabloid on another. Far less humorous was the report yesterday that Geoff Boycott, still an icon to thousands here, had suspected cancer of the throat.

The great batsman and former county captain, now 61, had reportedly been tested for nodules on this throat. Predictably, he reacted fiercely: "I am not prepared to talk in public about my private life.''

A minute later he was talking animatedly and cheerfully to some of his Indian media colleagues. The next rumour could possibly be that he is selling up and going to live next door to Sachin Tendulkar in Bombay.

England's Madras-born captain Nasser Hussain swept past 2,000 runs for his country and, in passing it, hit the advertising board of a cider company – they are posted on all the Test grounds – which means he could nominate his favourite charity to receive £1,000: the NSPCC.

Entry today will cost £5 and will be free for children, which is rewarding news for Yorkshire Under-15 and Under-13 teams, who are returning from Oundle where they both won their national championships.

The England coach Duncan Fletcher paid tribute to his captain, saying: "Nasser seems to play his best knocks when the wicket is difficult. Alec [Stewart] works at his game and is always willing to learn. Even at 39. We asked these guys to scrap it out and you couldn't ask for more from this pair."