Is the Rothesay County Championship the most competitive league in sport right now?
Essex go top at the halfway mark, but another seven counties are within striking distance
Ball one: Essex hit the heights
If you’re the form side in the country, the confidence that brings can overcome setbacks like a stone skimming across a pond. Essex, who very much are the form team just now, illustrated that point by easing to a six wickets win over Leicestershire, whose admirable spirit is unlikely to preserve their top flight status come September.
They started well, Ben Green knocking over both openers, but that only brought Essex’s Jordan Cox to crease, keen for time in the middle after a frustrating IPL and with a Test debut imminent. He scored a maiden double century and was promptly replaced by Michael Pepper as England decided that was probably enough.
Nick Kelly provided the only resistance from the home side with six Essex bowlers sharing the wickets, so they could not have been surprised to find themselves back out in the middle as Tom Westley enforced the follow-on. As is so often the case, it was more of a struggle second time round, with Lewis Hill’s century anchoring a stout Leicestershire effort right down the card.
A target of 215 is certainly well inside tricky territory, but the mark of a good side is the ability to find someone to step up. Cue tall Paul Walter (as with tall Dan Burn, the adjective is obligatory) with a ton, allowing his team to return down the M1 with 23 points in the bag.
Ball two: Coles on a hot streak as Sussex win again
The table never lies – or so they say – but Essex is actually not the best team in the first half of the championship season. That accolade belongs to Sussex, a notch behind, but carrying a 12 points penalty due to administration issues. That the players have responded with such verve is a superb testament to the leadership on the field, if not off it.
Glamorgan (another 2026 feelgood story) rolled down to the seaside and were themselves rolled in 53 overs, five bowlers pecking away at the batting order like seagulls on the pier swooping on your chips.
Since he received a bid of £390k in The Hundred auction, 22 year-old James Coles has struggled a bit for form this season, but he’s back with a bang, hammering 11 sixes and 22 fours en route to 224 not out. Glamorgan, to their credit, did not immediately fold, but still fell 98 runs short of making their hosts bat again, their last man falling to, who else, that man Coles.
Ball three: I know I shouldn’t say this, but…
Across 16 seasons of this column, I cannot have written a sentence more often than variants on “Somerset’s win puts them back in the hunt just behind the leaders”. It’s what they do.
Somerset’s win puts them back in the hunt just behind the leaders, but, just maybe, this time it could be a portent for the second half of the championship. Jinx or not, such thoughts are inevitable if you despatch the champions by 308 runs.
There were maiden Somerset centuries for Jordan Hermann and Thomas Rew (even younger than his brother, James, when he notched his) but this was a win born of experience. Haseeb Hameed’s men fell to Lewis Gregory (34), Migael Pretorius (31), Craig Overton (32), Jack Leach (34) and Jake Ball (35), a substitute for Gregory. Keep those thirtysomethings fit and it really, really could happen.
Ball four: both sides find something in a draw
At Scarborough, two sleeping giants met as Yorkshire and Warwickshire fought each other to a standstill in the sea breeze. Perhaps that descriptor is unfair, but they have, since 2015, just a Covid-truncated Championship / Bob Willis Trophy and two One Day Cups between them, which, given their histories, local significance and resources, is something of a scant return.
The draw last week helped neither to improve on that record, though it proved to be exactly the right kind of hard-fought cricket they’ll need to play to get the wins they’ll need.
What might work for the White Rose is giving Will Luxton an extended run in the side. Still only 23, he seems to have been in and out of the XI for years now, but, opening for the second time this season, he made a career-best 167 and 69, which may be his ticket to the slot until the end of September. If he’s the future of Yorkshire County Cricket Club, his coach and captain should back him.
Faced with an ungettable target of 453 in 15 overs and a day, only Dan Mousley sold his wicket cheaply as every Bear dug in to see out the draw. Those scoring rates (indeed, the old-fashioned idea of batting time) won’t win many matches, but it forges team spirit, crucial to Warwickshire after a dismal few weeks in the Blast, and provides a platform to push on. They’re only five points off the lead.
Ball five: Potts fires Durham to the top
It’s a very different story in Division Two, where Durham can probably start programming Trent Bridge and The Oval into their satnavs ready for 2027.
Despite Derbyshire’s Harry Came’s 105 being much the highest score of the match, his team were swept aside by an innings at Chester-le-Street, Durham extending their lead over third placed Kent to 30 points.
Kasey Aldridge picked up 5-19 in the first innings and Matthew Potts 8-66 in the second. That both are handy bats too is merely a bonus, but a welcome one in a county pro.
And it seems that is likely to be the fate of Potts, overlooked for England again despite his proven value bowling long spells in English conditions. It may be expected of such a wholehearted cricketer, but it is to his credit that he responded to disappointment with a ten wicket haul. He might be down the international pecking order, but he’s a local hero for sure.
Ball six: Lancashire as soft as old Blackpool rock
The break for the Blast came at a bad time for Kent, so they will have made the long trip to “the nation’s favourite playground” wanting to re-establish momentum. There, they simply kicked sand in the face of a moribund Lancashire to do exactly that.
Liam Livingstone’s five wickets on day one had cheered the locals, but a dismal effort in the first innings, 87 all out, Keith Dudgeon picking up six wickets, put the home side on the back foot. Chris Benjamin whacked a century in Kent’s second dig and Bangladeshi pacer, Hasan Mahmud, matched Dudgeon’s haul to ensure that Jimmy Anderson’s men got nowhere near their target of 424.
Lancashire may be missing injured players, but they’re consistently underachieving again in 2026. They’ll have to take a leaf out of Kent’s book and effect a significant improvement in results if another season (probably Anderson’s last) is not to slide away. Two trophies in the 21st century (and things now getting worse) is just not acceptable.