Essex go top of Division One, but Surrey may prove the real winners

Sussex’s Test class is showing in Division Two

Ball One: Taunton taunts new leaders with seamers’ paradise

As Jose Mourinho knew, points at the start of the season are worth exactly as much as points at the end of the season. When these cold, wet, uninspiring rounds of matches are forgotten in the mellow fruitfulness of Autumn, the table will remember.

In that context, Somerset’s defeat of Essex after two days of seaming skittling may prove to be crucial to either or both counties (and perhaps Surrey too). Twenty wickets fell on the first day, Sam Cook taking guard twice and squeezing in a quick fiverfer in-between. The pitches inspectorate, who never need much encouragement to punch ‘The County Ground, Taunton’ into a satnav, must have had twitchy fingers – but Cook and Jamie Porter running through a side will never excite them as much as Simon Harmer and Matt Critchley wreaking havoc.

The carnage continued into the second day and, when the dust (more accurately, the damp) settled, the home side needed 167 for the win, not too daunting, but it did represent the highest innings of the match. Much depended on the first hour, the crucial blunting the visitors’ outstanding new ball attack. It was a job description delivered superbly by Matt Renshaw and Sean Dickson, who played positively rattling along at five an over leaving fewer than 100 to get when they were separated. From there, a couple of decent knocks and some cool heads will get you over the line, and Andrew Umeed and Tom Banton proved up to the task.

Essex went top on their own, but missed a chance to steal a march on Surrey, who found a good week to miss. Somerset went second, but we all know how that tale ends.

Ball Two: Lyon’s roar silenced by batting fragility

Kent recorded their first win of the season, while Lancashire slumped to their second defeat in front of Sky’s cameras at Old Trafford. 

Credit goes to Kent’s two pacers who grew up in the southern hemisphere, Nathan Gilchrist and Wes Agar, the pair sharing 15 wickets between them. A hat-tip also to a couple of this column’s favourite cricketers, all-action all-rounder, Joey Evision and the ever-reliable, Daniel Bell-Drummond.

That said, after the home side’s bowlers had done their bit, dismissing Kent for 261, Keaton Jennings having decided to field, it really shouldn’t need all of a dismal first innings of 92 and half of the second innings to overhaul what was only a handy total.

Despite some fight from the lower middle-order, Lancashire’s batting looks callow once the top three (Jennings, Luke Wells and Josh Bohannon) are back in the pavilion. No point in selecting Australia’s Nathan Lyon and England’s Tom Hartley if there’s nothing on the scoreboard for them to work with.

Ball Three: Seales wraps up easy win

One has the feeling that Cheteshwar Pujara was not callow even as a toddler, so at ease is he with his old-fashioned, highly effective game. He arrived at the crease at Derby (a ground Mohammad Azharuddin described as the coldest he had ever played at) with Sussex 138 in arrears and left it with his team 143 runs to the good, his 64th first class century banked.

If it’s something of a surprise to see as classy an operator as him in Division Two, what to make of the Trinidadian tearaway, Jayden Seales, with ten Tests to his name already at just 22 years of age? The home side certainly couldn’t make much of a fist of it, his five wickets in eight second innings overs delivering a crushing innings victory that sent Sussex top of Division Two, with a game in hand on most rivals. 

Ball Four: Bean jumps into the spotlight

Yorkshire are not shy of sending Test class players on to the fields of the lower division either, but Joe Root, Shan Masood, Harry Brook and Adam Lyth were outshone by opener, Finlay Bean, 22, who top scored with 173.

When the home side declared with a lead of 298, Glamorgan knew they were in for a hard grind to save the match. They got through 138 overs and probably deserved a bit of help from the weather, centuries from Sam Northeast and Colin Ingram securing the draw. They are two of the top three runscorers in the country this season, but a combined 92 overs from spinners, Dan Moriarty and Dom Bess, for just two wickets (Root got a couple) won’t have pleased the members cradling a Bovril in the stands.  

Ball Five: Middlesex’s Magyar is hungry for runs

Sandwiched between Northeast and Ingram in the runscorers list is Leus du Plooy, who swapped Derbyshire for Middlesex in the winter. The cafes in St John’s Wood High Street may have a different vibe to those around the Racecourse Ground, but it hasn’t made any difference to the Hungarian international who has simply moved last year’s average of 82 on a couple of notches to 84 this season.

There wasn’t much he could do beyond helping himself to a century off Leicestershire’s attack as rain washed away the first and last day at HQ, but Middlesex, after the financial woes of last season, have quietly crept up to second in a still shapeless division, level on points with their opponents in last week’s match. 

Fortunately, county cricket’s transfer market does not generate the acres of what is now called content that sustains football’s Premier League in the rare weeks in which the teams are not playing, but recruitment is an important element of a county’s success. Tempting du Plooy looked canny a month ago – it looks even cannier now.  

Ball Six: PCA bowls a bouncer at the schedulers 

I recall during my decade or so as a union representative reminding management (and myself) that I was not a neutral party in negotiations. Though there will always be significant overlap between the interests of employee and employer – certainly more than is reported by a media which prefers simple narratives and is seldom an uninterested party themselves – there are times when it’s more a zero sum game.

The Professional Cricketers’ Association (once described as the only union more right-wing than its employers) has surveyed its membership who want to work less for (apparently) the same reward – well who wouldn’t? That is not to dismiss concerns over player welfare and the promotion of excellence, but surely issues such as late night driving can be solved with coaches (the Shane Warne, drivable kind), overnight stays and, yes, more sympathetic scheduling. But the precise mix of playing, practice and rest required to furnish an England captain with a fit and firing first choice XI seems as elusive now as it did a quarter-century or so ago when central contracts were introduced.

Perhaps there’s a more fundamental discussion to be had about exactly how much money the game needs. It will always want more – players, with a short career (though who has a job for life these days?) will chase the best contract, administrators the strongest income streams – and there will always be another development initiative on the table, goals identified, budgets planned. 

The hardest thing for go-getting successful managers, of employees or employers, to do is to say no, to admit that it’s a good idea, that it would bring in more money, that it would solve problems, but we’re not going to do it. Far more organisations are harmed by an excess of ambition than by its absence, The reach and the priorities of English domestic cricket could do with a little more definition. 

Weather forces more draws, but the Surrey drums are beating

Just the one positive result in the round, but two bowlers are building unlikely cases for England selection

Ball One: Chronicle of a Win Foretold

Last week, this column suggested that Surrey has a strategy to win cricket matches and this week, to nobody’s surprise, they applied it to beat not just Hampshire, but the weather that consigned the round’s other six matches to draws. It’s a hard-nosed realism that spins its own kind of magic.

Having rolled Hampshire on a green pitch, they were still 28 runs in deficit, five down at the end of Day One and it looked an even match. But Rory Burns had ground out 39 in 49 overs, but would live to fight in the morning. He was to convert that start into his first century since 2022, a seven hour effort to anchor the innings. He had to wait a while for a smiter to smite at the other end, but Jordan Clark, in at number nine, did not disappoint, his 106 at better than a run a ball securing a 208 runs lead.

Hampshire showed some fight, but with Dan Worrall nipping it about and Ollie Pope equalling a Surrey record with eight pouches at second slip, the game was up with a day to spare.

The champions of the last two years top Division One.

Ball Two: Essex draw level

It would be churlish to say that Essex are hanging on to the Londoners’ coattails as both sides have two wins and both have 71 points, but it inevitably feels like that when the Surrey steamroller starts to rumble.

Durham’s Colin Ackermann, somehow still only 33, kept Essex’s predatory attack at bay while David Bedingham and Ollie Robinson continued their strong starts to the season with 52 and 90, both at better than a run-a ball. Nick Browne celebrated his recall to the Essex colours with 184, supported well by Feroze Khushi, who also tonned up. The visitors had the home side two down in the second dig at Chester-le-Street and just one run in credit when stumps were pulled, the loss of Day Three scuppering both sides’ chances of forcing the win.

Sometimes this column can criticise captains for lacking imagination and being risk-averse in dealing with rain disruptions, but no blame can be attached to Scott Borthwick nor Sam Cook, standing in for the indisposed Tom Westley. Nor can the points system be criticised, 12 to Durham, 14 to Essex feeling about right for the balance of the game.

Ball Three: To d or not to d?

Nottinghamshire and Warwickshire, and Somerset and Worcestershire, also played out “blameless” draws, the points more or less evenly divided. Each is now wedged into the middle of the table, no win in four, ten left to play.

April can be a tough month to play cricket (any club player can tell you that) and this relentlessly cold, wet and windy Spring has made it even worse, time lost and not recovered and high water tables making pitches low and slow, easy to stay in, but hard to score quickly. Can anything be done, as April cricket seems here to stay?

There are certainly better times to experiment with the Kookaborra, as some matches from rounds one and two might still be going on now with the seamless, swingless, dare one say, foreign ball. So is there a radical solution?

Take the Durham vs Essex match. With Day Three washed out, the fourth day started with Essex trailing by 44 with three down, the draw was very much on the cards. Would it not be possible, even to be encouraged, for the captains to come together in the presence of the match referee and agree declarations or even a target should one side prefer to chase and the bowling captain set (say) 350 on the last day for the win? No doubt there are implications for bonus points and stats, but surely positive cricket should be encouraged, even with artifice involved. After all, I’m not sure the players nor the fans wanted this schedule for the only first class competition of the year. Let’s make the best of a bad job.

Ball Four: Matt Fisher to hook a place in the England ranks?

Another smorgasbord of stalemates keeps Division Two as shapeless as it has been, little between the teams.

The glamour game was at Headingley where the home side’s four Test batters – Adam Lyth 97, Shan Masood 40, Joe Root 119 and Harry Brook 126 – took maximum batting points as Yorkshire charged to 450/5d. Led by 40 year-old Wayne Madsen with a century, Derbyshire, just New Zealand bowler Blair Tickner with a Test cap in their ranks, did superbly to recover from 23/3 to go to within three runs of parity. It was always a draw from there.

Under the radar, it was another decent match for Matthew Fisher, who made his county debut 11 years ago, but is still only 26. He has just one Test, indeed, only 40 first class matches to his name, which tells the tale of another injury-hit young pacer’s developing career. It’s a long way back to the international scene for him, but stranger things have, and, no doubt will, happen.

Ball Five: Batter of the Week

Perhaps no English batter gets into a zone like Ben Duckett. There are times when he looks like the kind of slogger you would see in a club match coming in at eight with 40 needed in the last five overs, slashing at everything, trusting an eye like a dead fish. But there are times when he looks very classy indeed.

Duckett goes in first and does it against the new ball, the wearing ball and the old ball and the swinging ball, the seaming ball and the spinning ball. He has fast hands and the short stature that allows width to be cut right up to half-volley length. He drives and sweeps (conventional and reverse) and can drive hard in the V. On his day, there is nowhere to bowl to the left-hander.

His 218, during which eight different Warwickshire bowlers came pretty much as one, was so far out of keeping his colleagues’ play that the radio commentators ran out of adjectives.

Save some for England Ben.

Ball Six: Bowler of the Week

Dan Worrall is a perfect match for Surrey. He’s is patient, resilient and can work a batter out with plenty of nous and no little skill. Is he a Test bowler? He was once (well, thrice) an ODI bowler for Australia, but his British passport and residency qualifies him for England consideration next summer (and the following, Ashes winter, lest we forget) when he’ll be 33.

It seems a preposterous notion – as anyone who has heard his ‘Strine’ shouts at the Oval can attest – but there may be something in it. He is familiar with the Kookaburra, knows Australian conditions and will revel in the scoreboard pressure that England build. Okay, may build.

Could he come in and do a job? Scott Boland, who was 32, did the last time England went Down Under, so why not?

Essex and Surrey look like the teams to beat again this season in Division One

Weather still not playing ball – but at least it’s a Dukes

Ball one: Porter and co carry off the points

Three rounds in, and Division One has begun to take on a familiar shape, led by the winners of all but one of the pennants awarded since 2016. 

Essex, the only side to conjure a win from the two Kookaburra rounds, steamrollered a sorry Lancashire team to win by an innings at Chelmsford, their dominance illustrated by the fact that 11 visiting batters had two goes each for a top score of 35 – Essex’s nightwatchman, Sam Cook made 49. 

Back in the day job, he led a seam effort that combined to leave just three scalps for Simon Harmer to collect (908 first class wickets and counting). He, Jamie Porter and Shane Snater are at the peak of their powers, experienced, relatively injury-free and unlikely to miss matches due to international call-ups – quite a hand for skipper Tom Westley. With Porter the most expensive of the trio paying 23.6 runs per wicket, Essex are taking the traditional route to red ball success ie get 20 wickets as soon as possible. They’re top of the table, so who can gainsay them?  

Ball two: Burns’ team still running hot

Perhaps the champions of the last two seasons, Surrey, will.

Rory Burns’ men have taken a different approach to winning four day matches and it showed a little in their crushing victory over a spirited, but ultimately outclassed Kent.

Surrey have fine bowlers of their own, a pool of top class seamers spearheaded by the consistent movement of Dan Worrall at that handy notch above 80mph pace. But the club’s priorities might be indicated by the reluctance to play a specialist spinner. In recent years, Will Jacks has done the job and, this season, another batter who bowls, Cameron Steel, has stepped up to the crease to such effect that his leg-breaks have mustered 20 wickets, remarkably, the most by any bowler in the country.

Nevertheless, Surrey’s strategy, exemplified again in this match, is play solid conventional knocks at the top of the order and then hand over to the smiters from four to nine to pile up the runs that builds scoreboard pressure and creates the time for the bowlers to take their wickets. 

Dom Sibley and Dan Lawrence were both past their centuries and Surrey 96 runs ahead by the fall of their second wicket, the base from which the acceleration arrived to drive towards the declaration that left Kent needing 299 to make the champions bat again. To their credit, they came closer than many would have expected, Matt Parkinson, in at a vertigo-inducing number eight, batting nearly three hours for a career-best 39. But the Londoners, the wickets shared amongst five bowlers as they were in the first innings, got the job done, and bagged a full complement of 24 points in the end.

Ball three: Bedingham wide awake after breakthrough winter

Somebody should tell David Bedingham that the County Championship cannot produce international cricketers. Actually, that’s not quite fair as the 30 year-old South African’s talents were sharpened rather than developed over his now five years playing for Durham. 

He looked entirely at home in his four Tests during the winter, a classy addition to his country’s long list of middle-order strokemakers. He was more brutal with Worcestershire’s attack, playing the pivotal innings of the match, his 99 ball 138 sending the home side’s fourth innings target up to a notional 458. He’s one of the form batters in world cricket just now and a player worth travelling a fair distance to see as he might not be playing much longer in this competition.

It’s Worcestershire doing the travelling just now though, forced to decamp from New Road to Kidderminster. which cannot help players nor fans.   

Ball four: Clarke rewriting the record books

With Jonny Bairstow’s top score in five Tests and one IPL season in India just 42, now is not a bad time to present one’s credentials as a wicket-keeper batter (with due apologies to Ben Foakes who may – I say may – be considered a subcontinental specialist).

Now a full-time red ball keeper, Joe Clarke has backed up two centuries in the opening rounds with an undefeated 213, part of a 392 run stand with Will Young (174 not out), expunging the county’s third wicket record stand from the books after 121 years. That partnership first hauled Nottinghamshire back into the match against Somerset and then established a strong position, only for it to be rendered academic by West Country rain on the fourth day.  

If Clarke’s suspension for bringing the game into disrepute five years ago is to be held against him or if he is deemed not to have shown sufficient remorse for it, that should be made public, as no ban from selection was included in his sanction at the time. If not, he should be considered on merit – and he is building a strong case.

Ball five: Lamb beefs up Sussex lower order

The best match of the week saw Sussex squeak home against Gloucestershire at Hove to go top of Division Two.

Both first innings followed similar patterns as the visitors’ 218-5 was swollen to 417 all out before the home side pulled off the same trick, progressing from 253-5 to 479 all out. Bowlers stepped forward in the second digs, Ollie Robinson and Jayden Seales showing their Test pedigree with a combined 6-66 from 34.2 overs.

Set an awkward 144 for the win, Cheteshwar Pujara was always going to relish the challenge but, into the lower order, could Sussex find a batter to stand with India’s Wall Mark II? Danny Lamb was the man for the job, adding a crucial 17 not out to his 83 in the first innings and previous scores of 134 and 41 this season to raise his 1000 first class runs at 33.4. He’s a bit of a cheat code coming in six down – how Lancashire could have done with their academy product against Essex.

Ball six: single figures at Lord’s

With the temperature taking the Celsius reading below ten degrees and the wind chill making it feel like it was single figures in Fahrenheit too, I felt for the primary school kids huddled in the grandstand as the rain washed away much of the early play at Lord’s on Friday. 

The sun brought a little warmth after lunch, but the single figure theme continued as the two players their parents will have told them to look out for, Joe Root and Harry Brook, mustered 5 and 3 respectively, done with balls that pitched up and offered to move away from the right-handers. Those were smacked into the V in the previous two rounds, beating a relentless tattoo on the boundary boards. 

Somewhere a rueful Yorkshireman was probably muttering something about ‘proper creekit’ as his team went down to defeat, Middlesex finding enough batting backbone to get over the line, somewhat to the surprise of many supporters.

Stalemates dominate as Championship fails to ignite

Summer, and the Dukes ball, is coming to ignite a competition off to a tedious start

Ball One: WHAT ABOUT ME!

Nine matches, nine draws. 

You may think that bowlers had it tough with a ball that isn’t British and, perhaps as a consequence in a game in which environment matters, looked ill-suited to its job. Normal service resumes on Friday with the Duke ball restored to grateful bowlers’ hands.

You may think spectators had it tough with just enough sunshine to tempt them into believing that summer 2024 was here and that the fourth layer might not have been necessary, before winter blew angrily through the land on Monday. 

You may think commentators on the BBC’s streaming service had it tough finding new ways to describe drives, flicks, cuts and pulls in the long hours before discussion of partnership records could begin in earnest – something, anything, for variety.

But the real victim here is the writer charged with squeezing six discussion points out of a round of matches that leaves both divisions wholly shapeless with nearly 15% of the Championship completed. Don’t forget that!    

Ball Two: Averages a distinctly average subject just now

When in doubt, fall back on numbers. Stats always conceal as much as they reveal and the nascent averages are no exception.

Solid county pros lead the batting charts, Alex Davies, skipper of Warwickshire in Division One and Sam Northeast, skipper of Glamorgan (despite 11 and a duck last week) leading Division Two. That said, Matthew Potts, after nightwatchmanning his way to an undefeated century, is the 12th highest runscorer in the top flight, after just one appearance – I’m not sure he would claim to be the 12th best batsman at Durham CCC.  

That the country’s leading wicket-taker is Surrey’s part-time wrist-spinner, Cameron Steel, tells you all you need to know about the bowlers’ hit parade.

Ball Three: A pitch for better pitch locations

With Lord’s and Edgbaston setting stumps on the edge of their squares and other groundsmen mindful of the long season to come (and television’s requirement to use the more central strips) should we just accept an early season short boundary one of those things? They’ll all be within the playing conditions (though have you ever seen them measured?) and it’s the same for both sides, so get on with it.

Maybe we should not be so sanguine. First class cricket is the game’s purest form, its few restrictions on overs to be bowled, the distribution of fielders and the rhythm of attack and defence, handing captains the discretion to paint a canvas as they, rather than the administrators, see fit. The emerging picture, resolving itself across days rather than hours, is a precious delight in a world that increasingly abhors anything that demands patience and the embracing of nuance. Try TikToking the thought processes involved in considering a third innings declaration and see how far you get with that.

A boundary just a thickish top edge away elbows its way into a captain’s thinking. It limits his options as it must be protected, often by two fielders less than 20 yards apart, demands that bowlers find a line that takes the mere push for four out of the equation and limits the prospect of witnessing a delightful, but dying feature of the game, the well-judged three.

There are only 14 Championship matches all season long – it would be nice if they were given more sympathetic strips on the square.     

Ball four: Carrying a light for Nightwatchmen

Potts’s knock (149 not out from Number 4) brought back memories of nightwatchmen past. Often an endangered species (it is mandatory at this point to say that Steve Waugh didn’t use them) and now being reinvented as Nighthawks, a less problematic, non-gendered term that carries a somewhat forced Marvel Comic Universe razzamatazz to it, not entirely resonating with Wantage Road as an evening chill descends. 

They are a delightful quirk in our all-play-all game, free (for now at least) of designated hitters or substitutes. The second or third least capable batter straps on the armour to face the most threatening bowling in the least favourable conditions – that this is somehow the best tactic is a very, very crickety thing.

If Jason Gillespie remains the Patron Saint of Nightwatchmen, Alex Tudor is its lost boy, his 99 not out coming in his third Test match at just 21 years of age. Injuries were to grant him just seven more and the big fast man never came close again. It’s probably not the corner of English cricket history he dreamt of as a kid, but it’s his for sure and it’s lasted 25 years and counting, so it’s not so bad a place to have planted his flag.     

Ball Five: The fall of the sixth wicket

A cousin of the nightwatchman is the bowler who bats, the player definitely selected to get through the long hours of the afternoon when the shine is off the ball and batters are well set, but who can get a few runs now and again. Sometimes at seven, often at eight, occasionally at nine, they live under constant threat from loud voices proclaiming “You should pick your best six batters, your best wicketkeeper and your best four bowlers”. The Kookaburra is their friend.

The fall of the sixth wicket sees hitherto all but invisible opening bowlers grazing at fine leg suddenly ostentatiously stretching in the captain’s eyeline, shouts of “Just one more lads” from the keeper and grounds staff moseying towards the heavy roller. But it doesn’t always work out that way.

In innings in which a sixth wicket fell (have there ever been fewer in the first two rounds?) Essex put on 134 before declaring, Notts added 161, to which Worcestershire replied with 169 of their own, Somerset gave Surrey a taste of their own medicine with 189 in a draw-securing second dig and Durham found 186 runs of their not quite follow-on saving effort in response to Warwickshire’s monstrous near 700. And that’s just Division One.

Is the lower order an underused resource? With body protection to wear and few genuine speedsters around, can a tailender who averages 10 find the technique and confidence to average 20? It’s worth noting that Surrey’s two pennants in the last two seasons have been won with a Manx Cat batting order – no tail.    

 

Ball Six: Underwood beneath nobody in England’s bowling pantheon

It’s been a bittersweet pleasure to read tributes to Derek Underwood, a unique bowler, an all-time great for England and a stalwart of Kent cricket – county cricket – for more than two decades.

A personal reflection. As kids, we all tried to mimic the greats (Graham Gooch did it in a Test, so it was okay for us on the school playing field in the too-long summer holidays). Anyone could do a Thommo, though the ball usually went straight upwards. For Michael Holding, you just went back to the edge of the field and ran in with your head tilted back. Big Bob Willis? Charge in on the diagonal with your arms at your side.

Nobody could do a “Deadly”, right-arm or left. Sure you knew to run in behind the umpire, but getting the flat-footed, splayed approach was difficult. Then there was the characteristic gather, the hands describing shapes in the air, indistinct, but always the same. But the hardest part was the ferocity of the pivot and the speed of the arm in the delivery itself. All that energy through the crease resulting in a metronomic accuracy was little short of a miraculous and we couldn’t even make a parody.

So we went back and did a little scamper and a stiff-backed delivery from stump to stump. “Terry Alderman – can’t you tell?”

Deadly was as dead hard to do for laughs as he was dead hard to bat against for runs. There’s never been anyone like him since.    

Essex the only team to force a result in the opening round of the Championship

County cricket underway with a damp squib in more ways than one

Ball One: Curtain Up!

Big musicals start with big numbers, introducing the protagonist and riveting us to the seat for the next few hours. 

“My name is Alexander Hamilton

And there’s a million things I haven’t done

But just you wait, just you wait”

 

“Swing your razor wide, Sweeney

Hold it to the skies!

Freely flows the blood of those who moralize”

The County Championship peeps out, unacclaimed, barely announced, apologetic. Hardy souls pitch up and renew acquaintances and reflect on those who can’t make it this summer. There’s a new face or two in the team, but not as many as there might be behind the scarves and maybe even a balaclava or two beyond the boundary, cradling thermoses of chicken soup.

Is there a better way to open the season? Surely it’s worth trying something new to kick start the most prestigious competition of our national summer sport?  

Ball Two: Don’t go west young man

Somerset must be grateful to be scheduled away to Kent and not at home last week, the east of England rather less hostile for cricket in April than the west. But even Canterbury couldn’t facilitate a positive result, the wet Spring producing high water tables on outfields and high blood pressure in groundsmen’s sheds.

The visitors had the best of the first two days, Lewis Gregory leading the attack with four wickets and Matt Renshaw, Tom Lammonby, James Rew and Kasey Aldridge all posting half-centuries. Tons for Daniel Bell-Drummond and Joe Denly in Kent’s second innings were of no import in the disposal of bonus points, so Gregory’s men’s harvest of seven plus the eight points awarded for a draw this season, yielded a very handy 15 to place Somerset second in the nascent table. 

Ball Three: Dark days at Hove

Even when county cricket’s underlying product is so strong that it almost forces its players and administrators to get it right, someone can find a way to shoot themselves in the foot.

After Tom Haines’ century and some splendid late order enterprise led by Jack Carson had pushed Sussex over 100 runs ahead of Northamptonshire on first innings, the home side’s attack soon had the visitors nine down and just 63 runs in credit, whereupon bad light stopped play.

According to the radio, Sussex will not use Hove’s floodlights in any Championship match this season, citing the £150 per hour cost as a contributing factor. Surely somebody could have passed a bucket round?

Ball Four: Cuckoo in the nest

Grahame Clinton knows how Zain-ul-Hassan is feeling just now. Separated by 34 years and the width of the Thames, the two left-handers recorded scores of eight and 15 and five and two. No matter – it’s early season and an opener learns to take a few low scores in their stride as an occupational hazard.

Context suggests otherwise. Clinton’s scores came in an Oval run fest in which the innings scores read 707/9d, 863 and 80/1 and Zain-ul-Hassan’s in a Lord’s bonanza with scores of 620/3d, 655 and 31/2. For Neil Fairbrother (366), there’s Sam Northeast (335 not out), and for Ian Greig (291) there’s Ryan Higgins (221).

So far, so much fun for the would-be Zaltzs in Statsland, but for those of us unfortunate to watch a day of both matches, the parallels were less comfortable. In both cases, the ECB, in their infinite wisdom, required bowlers to toil with a near seamless ball once it had aged 45 minutes or so. At HQ, I felt that same feeling creep over me as it did under the scoreboard in the old Peter May Stand a third of a century ago – “Nothing’s happening here”. Roll in a bit of understandably ragged fielding early season, cold hands, under the cosh, and, had he not declared, Northeast might still be batting now, his 1000 runs in er… April secured.

The Kookaburra ball won’t be used in all Championship rounds this season – it shouldn’t be used in any.  

Ball Five: Bowler of the Week – Sam Cook

One of the reasons for experimenting with a narrow-seamed, machine-stitched ball is to enhance the X-Factor of genuine pace in a bowling unit. It’s probably not quite as crude as saying “The Aussies use this ball and they always have scary fast men so we’ll do the same and we’ll get some of our own”, but there are times when one could be forgiven for thinking so.

With Stuart Broad retired and Jimmy Anderson turning 42 in July, is it time to forget about the El Dorado of a resilient, consistent 90mph man and embrace medium pace? After all, those two took most of their 1304 Test wickets much closer to 80mph than 90mph.

If so, Sam Cook gave a reminder of his credentials with a ten wicket match (including a headline-friendly hat-trick) as Essex recorded the first win of the new season sweeping Nottinghamshire aside for 80 in a dismal second innings. The Chelmsford lad knows how to get batters out, 275 wickets at less than 20 in first class matches showing that a bit either way in the air and off the seam, at a pace that keeps ‘em honest and a consistent line and length, is a formula that works.

In a low key Test summer, England surely have to give players like Cook a chance. At 26, he has nothing left to learn in the domestic game – let’s see if he can get amongst them in the Test arena.  

Ball Six: Batter of the Week – Kashif Ali

There’s always a frisson of excitement amongst cricket fans when a new talent announces himself at the start of a season. Worcestershire, back in Division One, posted scores of 360 and 295/3 in the curtailed draw with local rivals Warwickshire, the star performer the 26 year-old Kashif Ali, playing only his ninth first class match and posting twin tons (110 and 133).  

It is right and proper that the South Asian Cricket Academy, which gave Kashif his opportunity to get a start in the game, is duly credited, but it’s equally important not to burden the batter with the unasked for role as a representative of his community. He is a batter making his way in the game and showing huge promise – that’s a tricky enough hand to play without any carrying the projections of others. The game, yet again, starts a season needing good news stories about inclusion, but that’s not a job for one man or one woman – it’s a job for all of us.

England

For India, Yashasvi Jaiswal announced his talent while Jasprit Bumrah underlined his and a new wicketkeeper-batsman, Dhruv Jurel, revealed his huge potential. For England, only Zak Crawley could find any consistency with the bat, while three youthful spinners acquitted themselves well on the toughest of assignments.

Ben Stokes: 199 runs at 20; one wicket at 17; four catches

Uncharacteristically, he could not find a way to influence even one match with bat or ball in hand, but it was his captaincy, more than any other factor, that had England trading blows for two Tests and two days in India – and not many teams have done that in recent years. His handling of his young spinners was exemplary (his old spinner not so much) and his roiling imagination in the field stubbornly refused to allow games to drift. Then India’s experience and class began to tell and four collapses in five innings saw an old story play out again. Grade B- 

Zak Crawley: 407 runs at 41

He looked what he is probably destined to become, England’s best batter, in making the most runs by an Englishman in the series, though he will be disappointed not to take any of his four half centuries past 80. Unlike some of his teammates, he also showed a greater willingness to adapt his attitude to the match situation, still attacking more often than not, but recognising the value of sitting in the game too. Four times in the four defeats, he did not leave the crease until 100+ had been posted – that fact is a testament to the brittleness of what followed. Grade B 

Ben Duckett: 343 runs at 34; four catches

England’s ‘No Leaves’ pocket rocket made an astonishing 153 at better than a run-a-ball to bring England back into both the match and the series at Rajkot, but five subsequent innings yielded a top score of 27 as India pushed some injudicious comments back to exactly where they came from. Will he add a few sensible greens to his raw meat diet of cuts, slashes and sweeps? I doubt it, but that might mean that others might have to adjust their approach, especially in away conditions to avoid a clatter of wickets. Grade C+ 

Ollie Pope: 315  runs at 32; six catches

Perhaps none more so than England’s vice-captain, who created one monument, his 196 that turned a first Test 190 run deficit into a 28 run win, but he could not reach 40 in his nine other knocks. The temptation of hindsight tells us that he used a whole series worth of good fortune in that extraordinary six hours of sweeping in Hyderabad, but, as a senior pro now in his seventh year as a Test batter, he needs to work out a more reliable means to express his talent – the cat-on-hot-tin-roof approach is an indulgence that few number threes can afford. Grade C+

Joe Root: 320 runs at 36; eight wickets at 51; 10 catches

Which is what England’s number four did, showing the humility to put away his dad-dancing routines and waltz to 122 and 84 in the last two Tests, innings that shielded his team from total humiliation. To be fair, those throwbacks to the sublime subcontinental batter we know and love only came when his captain released him from frontline spinning duties, a burden that may have impacted on two crucial drops of Jaiswal and Rohit at slip earlier in the series, when his hands were too high too soon, possibly the product of waning concentration. Something had to give with so unmanageable a workload, and it did. Grade B-

Jonny Bairstow: 238 runs at 24; three catches

England’s gamechanger failed to change a game, eight starts from ten innings squandered, in seven of which he fell between 25 and 39 as he sought to hit himself into The Zone. These days, England are happier for a player to receive one cap too many rather than one too few, and that approach might get him into the XI for the West Indies at Lord’s in July – but it might not. Grade D 

Ben Foakes: 205 runs at 21; 12 catches and four stumpings

He was picked for his wicket-keeping skills, especially to spin, and he delivered exactly what was specified in an old-school display of anticipation, footwork and soft hands. There were times when you could simply spend a half hour or so in a reverie watching a master technician at work, before being woken by another six dispatched back over the bowler’s head. He’s no counter-attacking seven though, especially with so weak a late order with which to work. Grade B

Tom Hartley: 185 runs at 19; 22 wickets at 36; two catches

After an initial mauling from batters determined to make him the next Simon Kerrigan, he held his nerve, the captain showed courage in keeping him on and he gained both wickets and the respect of the best players of spin in world cricket. He delivered the plan (an attacking line from a high arm to get turn and bounce) perfectly and demonstrated the concentration and mental resilience to bowl 250 overs in five matches. He also batted with a bit of devil too. Grade B+

James Anderson: 13 runs at 3; 10 wickets at 34; two catches

The old thoroughbred ran in and found a way to conjure wickets from conditions that were rather different to those in which he learned the game in Burnley. His 110 overs across four Tests showed that his captain used his senior pro wisely, his 20 maidens demonstrating the respect his opponents afforded to the 700 wicket man. Grade B 

Shoaib Bashir: 33 runs at 11; 17 wickets at 33; one catch

Shut out the noise around his late arrival and embraced his chance with both hands. He bowled as if he expected a wicket from every ball and delighted in them when they came along. He already has two fivefers to demonstrate his potential and one hopes that he’ll soon get plenty of county cricket overs to iron out the drag-downs and full balls that are, inevitably, a feature at this stage. His overspun, dipping delivery is a threat though, especially to left-handers – he should take every chance to speak to Nathan Lyon when he arrives for his English summer. Grade B+ 

Rehan Ahmed: 76 runs at 13; 11 wickets at 44; three catches

He has the chutzpah required of a young leg-spinner but the control is still elusive, the four-balls far outweighing the rippers. He has plenty of time to learn, but his captain appeared reluctant to bowl him at times. Certain to play lots of white ball cricket, his red ball future is less predictable. Grade C

Mark Wood: 48 runs at 10; four wickets at 78

Knocked over India’s two new princelings at Rajkot to give England hope, but that was the only innings in which he took wickets, his raw pace emasculated in conditions that offered him no lateral movement in the air. Grade C-

Ollie Robinson: 58 runs at 29; no wicket at n/a

He batted with skill and intelligence, but he bowled like a man playing his first match in seven months, so it would be tough to judge him too harshly. People will though. Grade C 

Jack Leach: 0 runs at n/a; two wickets at 48

Another injury-curtailed series for England’s hitherto first choice spinner. He will have noted the attacking lines bowled by the three youngsters (and the concomitant economy rates). Grade C

India

Rohit Sharma: 400 runs at 44; six catches

India’s captain took a while to find his batting groove but class, as it does, will out and two centuries and a fifty hammered the nails into England’s coffin in the last three Tests. His captaincy, particularly in contrast to his predecessor, can look passive in the field, but he rallied his troops magnificently after the shock defeat that opened the series, refusing to dwell on the excuse of experienced absentees. Grade A-

Yashasvi Jaiswal: 712 runs at 89; no wicket at n/a; three catches

At the start of the series, people wondered whether he was the next great star of Indian cricket: now the question is whether he is the next great star of World cricket. At 22, he has perfect balance, dazzling footwork and an instinctive feel of when to seize the moment, hitting sixes seemingly effortlessly to put the pressure back on to the bowlers. Add that cocktail to a voracious appetite for runs and you have the complete 21st century batter. He’ll need to export those talents into alien conditions overseas but, as things look now, he looks far more likely to be the heir to Brian Lara than to Vinod Kambli. Grade A+

Shubman Gill: 452 runs at 57; six catches

India’s previous holder of the mantle of The Golden Boy had a tough start to the series, reaching outside off stump and nicking too many beyond his eyeline. While his ears rang with calls for his dropping, he answered his critics with a crucial second innings century at Vizag that excavated India from a tricky position. That got him going and he never looked back. Grade A-

Sarfaraz Khan: 200 runs at 50; three catches

The run-machine from domestic cricket finally got his chance (after a touching cap ceremony with his tearful father) and did not waste it, pugnacious in delivering three half-centuries in three Tests. His bouncing celebrations of close-in catches are a delight to behold. At 26, he takes his place in the next generation of Indian batsmanship. Grade B+

Devdutt Padikkal: 65 runs at 65; two catches

Brought in to do a job against a tiring side in the fifth Test, he did so, and will line up in the logjam of batting talent at Rohit Sharma’s disposal. Grade B+

Dhruv Jurel: 190 runs at 63; five catches and two stumpings

Where did he come from? In just two years, he has progressed from a first class debut to the Test XI, looking as gifted on one side of the crease as the other. In an era when international keepers are often selected for their batting and expected to learn the glovework on the job, he is a breath of fresh air. Rishabh Pant is now close to full fitness, but it may be that he must play as a specialist batter if Jurel continues at this level. Grade A

KS Bharat: 92 runs at 23; six catches

Did not do much wrong but, after two nondescript matches, the brutal logic of elite sport saw him lose his place to a far greater talent. It might be a long road back for the 30 year old. Grade C+

KL Rahul: 108 runs at 54

As classy as ever in his one Test before injury ruled him out. Grade B+

Sheryas Iyer: 104 runs at 26; one catch

Another who paid the penalty after failing to convert four starts into a substantial innings, his debut ton is now 14 Tests in the past. He has time to come again, but whether the post-Kohli, post-Rohit India will skip a generation to those in their early 20s now, remains to be seen. Grade C-

Rajat Patidar: 63 runs at 11; four catches

Brought in for KL Rahul after the first Test, he was dropped by the fifth having looked a little overawed by the scale of the challenge. As is the case with his contemporary, KS Bharat, one should never say never, but it might turn out to be so. Grade D

Ravindra Jadeja: 232 runs at 39; 19 wickets at 25; one catch

Like his longstanding spin twin, he’s been so good for so long that it’s easy to overlook his excellence. But there it is – a critical century to rescue India from 33-3 at Rajkot in the pivotal third Test and then 5-41 to slam the door on any hopes England may have harboured in rallying spirits with a bit of fight. There weren’t many runs to follow – there didn’t need to be – but he chipped in with wickets as is his wont. Grade B+

Ravichandran Ashwin: 116 runs at 17; 26 wickets at 25; one catch

The veteran off-spinner looked short of his imperious best in the first half of the series, his mind perhaps distracted by domestic matters that required a day at home in the middle of the Rajkot Test. He was to return fired with the competitive instinct that has burned bright for 100 matches and had much too much guile for England, securing 15 wickets as India sprinted to the 4-1 scoreline. Grade B

Kuldeep Yadav: 97 runs at 20; 19 wickets at 20

Can you really be a surprise packet seven years on from your debut? Brought in as a replacement for the injured Jadeja in Vizag, he asked the fiercely tricky questions that only a left arm wrist- spinner can ask, and kept his place when Axar was axed. Thereafter, he bowled with ebullience and batted with discipline to take vital wickets with sharply turning deliveries, either way, that England’s batters could not read, and an evil snaking slider that was aimed for the edge and often found it. To take his wickets at a better average and strike rate than his illustrious colleagues in the spin unit shows just how good he was. Grade A- 

Axar Patel: 133 runs at 33; five wickets at 41; one catch

England had no answer to his scuttling flying saucer ball last time round, but pitches much more conducive to an even battle between bat and ball nullified his threat and he gave way to the bouncing Kuldeep. He made handy runs, but he’s no number six in any Test side. Grade C+

Mohammed Siraj: 15 runs at 15; six wickets at 46; two catches

Bustled in with his usual aggression, his four wickets in the first innings at Rajkot snuffing out any chance of an unlikely first innings revival. He bowled only 67 overs across four Tests which suggests that his captain had better options most of the time – and he did. Grade C+

Jasprit Bumrah: 58 runs at 12; 19 wickets at 17; four catches

One of which was the peerless spearhead of India’s attack, his 19 wickets at 17 an absurd outlier among the pacers on show. It was his nine wickets at Vizag that dragged India back into the series, rightly securing the Player of the Match Award ahead of double-centurion, Jaiswal. His ability to find bounce and movement on unresponsive pitches from a snapping wrist and supreme control is as impressive as any bowler in India since (at least) Dale Steyn. He is clearly India’s best opening bowler since Kapil Dev and may go on to surpass even his standing in the Pantheon. Grade A

Akash Deep: nine runs at 9; three wickets at 28; one catch

A fairytale opening spell in Test cricket knocked over England’s top three in Ranchi, but he didn’t bowl in the second innings and gave way to the returning Bumrah for the final Test. Grade B-

Mukesh Kumar: no runs at n/a; one wicket at 70

Came in for a debut in for his debut in Vizag and looked a bit of a trundler, an opinion perhaps shared by his captain who gave him just 12 (expensive) overs and he wasn’t picked again. Grade D

Following on from reviews of 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021 and 2022 here are a few more moments to savour.

1) The first ball of The Ashes

Crack! Roar!

At 10.59am on the 16th June at Edgbaston, nobody was queuing for a bacon roll and a coffee. Most had been in their seats for 30 minutes at least, a febrile mood going viral around the concrete bowl already living up to its reputation for housing England’s most fervent supporters. All it had needed was Ben Stokes to say, “We’ll have a bat” for fans to be out of their seats, war cries filling the air, the anticipation already dialled up to 11. It couldn’t possibly live up to this could it?

A hush descended as Patrick Cummins, Australia’s captain, ran in and delivered the first ball of The Ashes, a little full of a length outside Zak Crawley’s off stump. For almost 150 years, it would have been left alone, the opener pleased to settle the nerves, the guard marked again, the heart rate dropping. Not today.

Crawley stood tall and creamed the most perfect of cover drives to the boundary and… there was a beat. Barely perceptible, but it was there, each individual taking their own moment to register exactly what they had seen.

Roar! 

2) Drama at the Southbank

On a perfect summer’s evening, the Thames glinting before us, my brother and I were crouched over his phone listening to the commentary from 100 miles or so north. We were outside the National Theatre waiting to see Dear England, James Graham’s play focused on Gareth Southgate, but really about the changing face of masculinity in 21st century England. It was the unchanging face of Australian masculinity that preoccupied us at that moment.

Cummins and Nathan Lyon had joined forces with 54 runs required to win the first Test, but neither of us were confident that England could get the two wickets they needed. “Australia will bat out time now surely – they’ll be happy with the draw”.  

Two overs later, Cummins hit Joe Root for two sixes in three balls and showed that there wasn’t just one captain on the field who did not believe in draws. I looked at my brother and he looked at me and neither of us had to say anything.

Inside the theatre, the house was arriving, some asking us for the score. “Cummins and Lyon are still there – they need 17… 12…9…”. The same wan smile came back each time. Australia may not have won an Ashes series in England for 22 years (and counting) but they’re still Australia. 

Cummins hit the winning runs and a strange, glorious rollercoaster of a match ended with two bowlers batting their side to the victory. Little did we know that things were going to get stranger still at Lord’s a week or so later.

3) One day cricket at its best

In the autumn, the best players in the world assembled in India to play matches well short of the best, as 50 overs cricket did itself no favours, a Glenn Maxwell epic aside.

A few weeks earlier, not even the best players in Hampshire and Leicestershire assembled to play an unforgettable match that had everything, reminding us that sport is more about competition than it is about superstars.

The match had tilted this way and that, Hampshire reducing Leicestershire to 89-6 before Harry Swindells (“He’s one of our own” sang the fans who had made the short journey to Trent Bridge) and Sam Evans conjured 151 runs for the seventh wicket, batting with nous and flair to give their side a fighting chance.

Hampshire kept losing wickets at inopportune moments, but Liam Dawson, one of the form players of the summer, was still there and, with one over to go, he was in partnership with another old hand, Keith Barker, and just eight runs were required.

Josh Hull, having turned 19 a month or so earlier, had the ball in his hand. He had got some tap through the afternoon, but had clung on to a fine catch a couple of overs earlier, so he was in the game. I thought of the young man’s parents and the nerves I felt watching my son bowl the last over of a schools match – what must they be feeling!

Three singles and then Dawson, under pressure, is caught and the lad concedes just two more singles to win the match for the underdogs, the side who were down and out six or so hours earlier. The Metro Bank One Day Cup was Leicestershire’s.

What the future holds for the competition, we don’t know; what the future holds for Josh Hull will also emerge only in the fullness of time. Both will thrive if given the support they need. And those of us who were there to witness this match for the ages will only be too happy to provide it.  

 

A player can only be named as a county cricketer of the year once. Here are the previous winners: 2022, 2021, 2020, 2019, 2018 and 2017

Liam Dawson – no bits-and-pieces merchant

With a tour to India coming up in the winter, building a case as a second spinner who can bat is never a bad move and few can have done that as convincingly as Liam Dawson last summer. Whether it will be enough remains to be seen, but few watchers of the county game can have doubts.

Though Hampshire’s ageing team could not sustain a challenge from April to September, the slow left-armer, a much cannier operator than when he last played Test cricket six years ago, took 49 Championship wickets at 20, with four fivefers and made 840 runs at 40, with three centuries and four fifties. In June, at home to Middlesex, he made 141 with the bat and then skittled Middlesex twice with 6/40 and 6/92.

Those high peaks, underpinned by consistency, was enough to win him the PCA Men’s Overall Domestic Most Valuable Player Award for 2023. Whether it wins him a Test summons six years on from his last call to the colours might depend on whether England can ditch the bits-and-piece tag that always clings to players like Dawson and go like-for-like at number seven with Ravindra Jadeja.

Ryan Higgins – the workhorse deluxe

It takes a special kind of professionalism to keep turning up when your teammates keep sagging off. Such was the fate of Ryan Higgins, batting below the most fragile top order in county cricket.

Only a late burst of form from Sam Robson prevented the Middlesex all-rounder being their only batter not just to average over 40, but average over 30, as his team’s almost laughable paucity of batting bonus points plunged them further and further into a relegation fight they eventually lost.

Only Ethan Bamber took more wickets than his 31 at 27.5 and the 28 year-old, in a second spell at HQ, repeatedly raised himself in order to raise his team. Add in six fifties and 22 wickets in white ball cricket and the fact that he played in all 35 Middlesex matches from April to September, and you have the epitome of a county pro giving everything to his team and, perhaps even more importantly, to the game.

We might just have the next Darren Stevens.

James Rew – potential unlimited

Still a teenager, the Somerset prodigy is already delivering on the promise he showed in 2022. He’s a different kind of player to the last starburst of talent with bat and gloves down Taunton way – Jos Buttler – but he is building a strong case to be at the front of the queue when Jonny Bairstow, 34 now, decides to call it a day in Test cricket.

The long-time leader of the table of highest run scorers in Division One  surrendered top spot after an autumnal slump in form, but still finished third behind a couple of experienced technicians in Josh Bohannon and Tom Westley – and no batter topped his five centuries.

Rew still has some way to go before he is the finished article (Somerset have been judicious in handling his white ball workload) and the PCA Men’s Young Player of the Year will encounter a few bumps in the road ahead, but, with the kind of support that Brendon McCullum (who plied the same trade) and Ben Stokes offer, he could be a jewel in the crown come The Ashes 2027, when he will be (checks calendar) 23 years old.

Daniel Bell-Drummond – the backbone of the game

It’s hard to credit the fact that the Kent opener only turned 30 in August, as he has been such a fixture on the county scene since we first saw him 13 seasons ago. He knows his game inside-out now and can move between different formats at will, even if the odd injury can disrupt his season.

His triple century at Wantage Road was his most eye-catching performance of the season, but he made runs almost every time he went to the crease: 579 at 44.5 in the Championship; 390 at 78 in the One Day Cup; and 600 at 60 in the Blast. Unsurprisingly, those he led the averages for his county in all three competitions.

He has had a taste of franchise cricket (and, one hopes, a taste of the money too) but any hopes of international recognition are probably in the past now. Given a fair wind, he might have as many as ten more seasons on the county circuit and many spectators, at Canterbury and well beyond, will look forward to see a craftsman go about his work to such good effect. Such players have always been around and have always enjoyed respect from fellow pros and fans alike, a decoration to the English summer.

Brett Hutton – running in and taking wickets

Is Brett Hutton an example of everything that’s wrong with the county game or everything that’s right?

The Notts seamer played for England Under-19s, but never had the pace to make it in international cricket and, it seemed, maybe not in the domestic game either, as a spotty appearance record, including a spell away at Northants, can attest.

But cricket is such a gloriously complicated game that, for every James Rew who bursts on to the scene with the game apparently solved, there’s a Hutton, a slow burning study in skills acquired and perfected and a body understood and managed. For us spectators, we can enjoy both trajectories with equal relish.

Hutton’s 62 wickets bettered Simon Harmer’s haul by one (in one fewer match to boot) to top the Division One bowling ladder, representing a full 20% of his scalps in a career now 13 seasons old. He didn’t do much in white ball cricket, but his kind of ‘top of off stump’ line and length can travel in that format and not everybody has to be good at everything.

So, back to the question above. Is he blocking the chance of a young thruster itching to get his chance to show he has what it takes to be considered for greater honours (or, these days perhaps, a big money franchise contract)? Or is he an example of how the game can accommodate a player willing to persevere and adapt their game until it comes good? The latter for me – but you knew that anyway.

 

Surrey win second County Championship in two years

Heartbreak across the Thames, as Middlesex go down and Kent stay up

Ball One: Surrey lose, but win again

So the expected, yet somehow not quite predictable, winners of the County Championship 2023 limped over the line, Surrey hoisting back-to-back pennants with another from 2018 folded up neatly somewhere in Kennington. It’s quite the record.

Rory Burns suffered an uncharacteristically sloppy defeat at the Ageas Bowl, failing to chase 185 but only after events at Wantage Road had expunged Essex’s faint chance of lining up the abacus in their direction – 20 points proved the Londoners’ margin at the top of the table.

The expected aspect of Surrey’s win relates to their deep pockets, their proven academy and a hinterland not short of the kind of schools that provide many (too many) of England’s best cricketers. The less predictable reference concerns the number of Surrey contracted players intermittently unavailable through international call-ups, franchise cricket or injuries. The following players have fewer than 10 appearances in the 14 match season: Ollie Pope, Sean Abbott, Gus Atkinson, Tom Latham, Will Jacks, Sam Curran, Tom Curran, Jamie Overton and Kemar Roach. And that’s just the internationals.

It’s quite a feat of leadership from captain Burns, coach Gareth Batty and director of cricket Alec Stewart, to maintain consistency across so fragmented a squad and so fragmented a season.

Ball Two: Essex’s valiant challenge drifts away

With just the single win in their first six matches, it is a testament to Essex’s superb mid-season form that they were able to go into the final match of the six months long haul with a chance to win the title. But perhaps the defeat last week at home to Hampshire had knocked the stuffing out of them, because they could not land a blow on doomed, but suddenly resurgent, Northamptonshire.

Rob Keogh’s 172 had made the win a distant prospect but, once the Northants seamers had shot out four top order bats for 72 runs, the required hand of bonus points looked less likely than Alastair Cook signing off for the season (and maybe for the career) with a blaze of sixes. Following on, with the champagne corks popping a hundred miles or so south, the air had gone out of the balloon and the end came quickly, to no material effect on either side’s finishing position.  

Ball Three: Bohannon and Bailey baulk Kent

The fun, as it so often is, was to be found at the other end of the table in the scramble to avoid the trapdoor. Kent and Middlesex were the two counties wrestling to avoid the drop and it went down to the wire. 

Kent amassed the bonus points they were looking for, knocking over Lancashire for 327 and then, with 95 from Ben Compton and 136 from Joe Denly, giving themselves a chance of the win that would make Middlesex’s result at Trent Bridge academic. But Lancashire’s eighth wicket pair of Josh Bohannon and Tom Bailey (whom I think we might call an all-rounder these days) batted over two hours, putting on 124 and opening the door for a great escape from Middlesex.

Ball Four: Middlesex go down fighting

So what were once transistor radios but now will be phones came out as a nervous dressing room listened to their fate being decided at another ground altogether.

After two first innings had followed similar paths, Middlesex’s 366 anchored by Ryan Higgins’ 137 and Nottinghamshire’s 384 built around Ben Slater’s 140, Middlesex had to pile up quick runs, offer a carrot with the declaration and bowl out the home side. A few biffs, including a ton for Sam Robson (and tons have been rare indeed for the visitors’ top order this season) set Notts 207 for the win and Middlesex ten wickets for survival.

All appeared lost for Toby Roland-Jones’ men when Notts crossed 100 just the one wicket down, but the spinners got into their work, Robson’s occasional leg breaks proving more dangerous than the off breaks of Indian Test bowler, Jayant Yadav or those of the emerging Joshua De Caires. There were still 50 runs needed when Matthew Montgomery was joined by his number nine, Brett Hutton and a tricky five, with the pressure very much on, when Jake Ball walked out for a valedictory appearance after 15 years with the county. 

The last ball of the last match on the last day saw a thriller go Nottinghamshire’s way, but the loudest cheers came from Canterbury, which will host Division One cricket again in 2024.       

Ball Five: Hopes rise for a “New” Yorkshire

Worcestershire rather stumbled into Division One after two declarations set up a target of 360 on every chasing team’s favourite ground, Headingley.

The home side’s chase was anchored by the captain, Shan Masood’s 123, but a pair of 22 year-olds, James Wharton and George Hill, scored a combined 127 off 139 balls, a significant contribution to an innings that roared over the line at a Bazballish five and a half an over. 

They are the future of Yorkshire cricket, something that needs to emerge fully in 2024 after so much dysfunctionality these last few years.  

Ball Six: I do like cricket / oh yes / I love it

As October rolls round, the county cricket season is done for another summer (or, should I say, spring, summer and autumn). Fine players have played well, the county championship proved competitive even if both divisions’ winners had led for much of the season, the Blast played to persistently strong crowds and the One Day Cup showcased emerging players and provided a splendid final.

On the other hand, county cricket’s schedule is determined by so many external factors that it’s hard to maintain a narrative, a compelling story told across the long season and its multiple formats – I promise you it’s true! God knows, county cricket has its problems, but that could have been written in the round-up of any season for over 100 years (okay, maybe not 1947). 

That county cricket survives in a world where many of the actual counties are long gone and millions, perhaps billions, when they hear the word “cricket”, think of a white ball, coloured clothing and a game concluded in hours not days, is a miracle in itself. 

Then again, maybe not. As this website proves with it’s CC Live Blog and the space it affords me to write each week, words on which many of you comment so constructively and warmly, and as many spectators at county matches know, the cricket itself is only the start of the day. There’s the camaraderie that comes from being a member of a sect, the friends we meet and the friends we miss, the thrill of seeing a new kid with a sublime off drive or a bustling quick who can make the old pros dance at the crease, maybe even a coy leg spinner, who’s going to go for a few but might just make it. 

With due apologies to CLR James, what do they think of cricket who only cricket think? Or, more aptly perhaps, what do they know of cricket who only money know? That’s the question for 2024 and beyond.

Kent and Middlesex will fight to avoid the drop 

Surrey are on the brink of retaining the Division One championship with a 20 points lead going into the last round of matches

Ball One: The ground where it happened – or, rather, did not happen

At The Oval, bottom of the table Northamptonshire needed the win; top of the table Surrey would very much have liked one. And yet a draw was the result – how so?

The shorter answer is that rain took time out of the game and the visitors unleashed a new recruit, Indian Test batter, Karun Nair, whose 150, supported by Tom Taylor’s 66 continuing his good recent form down the order, got Northants up to 357. After some excellent seam bowling and uncharacteristically inconsistent batting, Surrey found themselves invited to follow-on, giving Rory Burns and Dom Sibley the opportunity to bat out the draw, hands shaken on 142-0 after 64 overs.

The longer answer is that Luke Procter, having declared and lost to Warwickshire last time out, seemed disinclined to do so twice in succession, preferring to send his seamers out again rather than have a thrash with the objective of dangling the carrot of a 250 or so chase. Would Surrey have taken the bait and played more shots given the pennant was the prize for a win? Perhaps so, perhaps not.

Maybe Burns, who knows how to win a championship, heeded the words of Alexander Hamilton in the musical – 

“And I wanted what I got

When you got skin in the game, you stay in the game

But you don’t get a win unless you play in the game”

Northamptonshire will play Division Two cricket next season; Surrey have a 20 points lead over Essex going into the last round of matches.    

Ball Two: Hampshire do not botch a second chase in seven days

That’s because their nearest challengers came off second-best after a tremendous game of cricket at Chelmsford.

Having elected to bat, things looked tricky for the home side at 132-5 with Keith Barker, Mohammad Abbas, Kyle Abbott and Liam Dawson banishing any blues from their heartbreaking defeat in the Metro Bank One Day Cup Final. But Adam Rossington made a century, Matt Critchley 99 and there were fifties from Simon Harmer and Umesh Yadav allowing Tom Westley the luxury of a declaration.

Harmer then did Harmer things and, despite a Tom Prest ton, Essex, needing the win, had a lead of over 100 which a bit of T20 style batting converted into a target of 267 in what turned out to be 59 overs.

At 32-4, Essex were big favourites, but Hampshire’s best two batters, James Vince and Liam Dawson, were at the crease and, with a bit of assistance from dropped catches, added 184 for the fifth wicket and, unlike the match against Leicestershire at Trent Bridge, could rely on their late order to get them over the line. 

Essex will be bitterly disappointed, but did the right thing in risking the defeat in the hope of the win. They’ll need to win themselves this week and hope that they get some assistance from Surrey’s opponents who are, naturally, Hampshire.    

Ball Three: Kent can’t against Somerset but will need to against Lancashire

If the 20 points gap at the top of the table is daunting, the one point lead Kent hold over Middlesex (itself down to an over rate penalty) at the other end of the table looks far more bridgeable. 

The visitors were very much second best at Taunton, the single bonus point all they deserved as weather, as much as their own efforts, led to the draw after Tom Lammonby and Lewis Goldsworthy racked up centuries and Tom Kohler-Cadmore racked up sixes, Somerset declaring on 404-4. Kent surrendered 12 wickets in the 70 overs possible in the rest of the game, Joe Denly the only batter to score more than 35 as the home seamers cashed in. 

Jack Leaning welcomes mid-table Lancashire to Canterbury this week – he’ll need his batters and bowlers to be far less accommodating if they are to stay in the top flight. 

Ball Four: Murtagh mighty with the ball, but Middlesex meek with the bat

It looked like ‘same old, same old’ for Middlesex at Lord’s, the bowlers trudging out with just 121 first innings runs behind them, but Tim Murtagh, on his valedictory appearance at HQ, led the fightback, his five wickets reducing Warwickshire to 95-6, but skipper, Will Rhodes, eventually found a partner in Danny Briggs and 102 and 99 respectively swung the game his way.

Second time round, Sam Robson dug in for bed and breakfast and resisted for nearly seven hours, but the fact that he carried his bat demonstrates that he couldn’t (with the exception of the admirable Ryan Higgins) find a reliable man at the other end to secure the points for the draw.

Middlesex go to Trent Bridge for their last match as Nottinghamshire play the part Lancashire will play at Canterbury – somewhat disinterested onlookers in shootout with the duellers at 200 miles distance rather than ten paces. 

Ball Five: The efforts of Lees and de Leede likely to lead to promotion  

Durham and Worcestershire can both be satisfied with their work in a match at New Road that lost too much time for a result to be likely. 

After the home side had posted 313 all out with three wickets for Bas de Leede (who is set  to be an interesting prospect in Division One next season) Alex Lees did as Alex Lees has done since he returned to championship level cricket with good runs scored quickly and Scott Borthwick and Ollie Robinson did the rest.

Durham, with just the one defeat all season playing relentlessly positive cricket, are Division Two champions; Worcestershire are likely to join them come April.

Ball Six: Don’t do the crime if you can’t do the time

Leicestershire, in arrears by 22 points, have only the slimmest chance of denying New Road Division One cricket next season, but Sussex do not even have that straw to clutch after a 12 points deduction for incurring a fourth fixed penalty this season.

The sanction seems simultaneously harsh and lenient; harsh as 12 points is eight percent or so of their season’s work; lenient because four offences in 13 matches feels like a pattern. Cheteshwar Pujara, as captain, is also suspended for this week’s match.

Does county cricket have a disciplinary problem? On the pitch, one might compare it favourably with other sports – after all, there’s a missile in play and days can be long and hot in the field. But maybe that’s down to penalties like this one. Players in all sports are highly transactional in their behaviours – make it not worth their while, and they won’t do it. Sussex’s fate will have been noted in dressing rooms and committees around the country and that’s no bad thing at all.