Four draws, not one even close, in a poor week for county cricket
Somerset pick a good week to miss as Kent hit rock bottom – aga
Ball one: draws are no draw
Two points are often, and justifiably, made about first class cricket – that it is an extraordinarily rich environment for strategic and tactical complexity and that the captain has more influence over the shape of the match than do captains in other sports. I might make a case for grand tour cycling’s canvas, but I’m not going to push that argument hard.
So how do all four Division One matches, with little, if any, interference from weather, not just end in draws but come nowhere near a positive result?
Of course, multiple factors create this perfect storm from pitch preparation, the limited availability of players to coaching and skills execution (why is reverse swing so rare these days?) For all that, this column has always believed that two elements loom too large in a captain’s mind when considering his options.
(i) the eight points reward for a drawn game, particularly after harvesting a crop of first innings bonus points, is very much worth defending. Rather than go back to five for the stalemate, as it was in 2023, maybe offer 20 points rather than 16 for the win. That is the objective after all.
(ii) Disdain is still too readily heaped on the “contrived result” or “declaration bowling”, but is it really deserved? Is a 60 minutes post-lunch thrash off long hops followed by a three hour chase of 300 in 48 overs a better game for all than two sessions watching two set batters pad their averages as the fielding side up their over rate and avoid injuries?
Ball two: Bears go top as crowd hibernates
It was an excellent round for Somerset, who did not play yet only relinquished their top spot by a single point to Warwickshire, who have played one more match.
After Ed Barnard, Chris Woakes and Michael Booth had lifted the visitors’ first innings from 179/6 up to 459, the bowlers continued to carry the match to the champions, Nottinghamshire, dismissed for 279. The lead was 180, but surely captain Barnard, a bowler himself, should have taken more cognisance of the figure 81.1, the number of overs in his attack’s legs.
I’m sure that, 166 overs later, those legs were very much on his players’ minds after centuries from Haseeb Hameed and Kyle Verreynne and decent knocks from Ben Duckett and Joe Clarke secured a draw for Notts. Eight Bears bowled 16 overs or more in that second dig. They’ll need that week off before their next round.
Ball three: Bashir might have staunched the bashings
Some numbers. 520, 691, 263/4, 409, 472 and 302/2. And no wins.
Now Rory Burns and the Surrey machine know far more about managing a championship season than do I, but if your home square is yielding up innings of that magnitude, is a quiet word in the ear of the groundsman required?
Alternatively, is it time to reassess Surrey’s long time refusal to play a specialist spinner, an unorthodox approach that has been vindicated by pennants, but not mimicked by too many other counties?
I was somewhat surprised when Shoaib Bashir was not pursued in the close season instead being tempted by the bright lights of, er, Derbyshire and Division Two cricket. He may not be tearing up trees at the moment, but he has proved that he can shoot out top batters when they are set – and he’d be bowling behind big runs to attacking fields in South London.
Ball four: Crocombe flying high
It always feels more objective looking at batters’ stats when building an argument for a player to come in for an England place (maybe as an opener, who knows just yet?) compared to those of bowlers. Subjective qualities such as “Bowls a heavy ball”, “Moves it late in the air”, “Troubles left-handers” can be backed by data these days, but it’s usually easier to find solid reasons not to pick a bowler than the opposite. “Too many four balls”, “Lost his zip” and the ever-reliable “Too slow for Test cricket”. (Vernon Philander anyone?)
Henry Crocombe is picking up wickets when other bowlers, certainly outside the prowling pack of wise old foxes, are not, the Sussex pacer bagging 16 at less than 18 to top the Division One charts. That he spent last week bowling to Joe Root, who knows a bit about what it takes to be a Test match bowler, won’t have hurt his case. Nor that he got the maestro out for 96.
Ball five: oh dear, Lanky, Lanky
I’m loathe to bring up the unhappy substitute rule, new for this season and stumbling towards a review, but watching a wicketkeeper-batter (George Bell) and an opening bowler (Tom Bailey) tossing up Sunday afternoon off-breaks, because the spin-bowler-who-bats, Arav Shetty, was not allowed to be replaced by spin-bowler-who-bats, Tom Hartley, was not what it was brought in to do. The video stream did not show county cricket to best advantage covering that mallarkey – subscribers won’t pay for that!
But that’s a subplot really. Durham were over 200 behind, eight down in their first innings, but late order runs are a mark of a good side and James Anderson and co couldn’t finish them off, Matthew Potts once again showing his credentials for all-rounder status.
Potts then knocked over three Lancastrians to leave them reeling at 41-5, but a century from ex-Durham man, Paul Coughlin, allowed Keaton Jennings to declare and set the hosts 336 in a day.
With Anderson at the top of his mark and even a bowler light, Lancashire must have been favourites, but, on a dying wicket, Emilio Gay and David Bedingham put on an unbeaten stand of 290 to cruise home and nestle in, three points off their opponents still top of Division Two, who have a game in hand.
Ball Six: Kent just can’t
Kent finished 2024 tailed off at the bottom of Division One, they finished 2025 tailed off at the bottom of Division Two and, after an innings defeat at New Road, they’re back in the basement again.
I half-expected to see an XI on the sorry scorecard comprising callow youths and seasoned pros on their last contracts as the club wrote off the red ball season to concentrate on one day stuff, in which they have some pedigree of course. But no. Worcestershire handed out an innings defeat to a blend of experienced pros and talented players who may be short of the quality to go up against the best Division One outfits, but should surely be holding their own at the lower level.
Tom Taylor led the Pears’ attack with a second innings fivefer, but four other members of the seam battery took at least one wicket in each of Kent’s two efforts, in which the highest score from a top six batter was Zak Crawley’s 31.
Kent welcome an equally abject Derbyshire to the St Lawrence Ground on Friday – lose that and a very long season stretches in front of them.