Lancashire won by 14 runs

Lancashire finally have their first win of the 2013 and secured it in dramatic fashion at Colwyn Bay. The win moves Lancashire up to third in the second division table, behind Northamptonshire who have had an excellent start to the season and Hampshire who have had the better of the bonus points.

It was in some ways the worst match Lancashire have played this year; certainly the batting failed to match the standard set in the opening two matches at Old Trafford. Lancashire dominated those two matches, but were never firm favourites at any stage of the match. It was at best very close right up until the last wicket fell and twice Glamorgan looked to be cruising to victory. The first time was when Simon Katich was given out to leave Lancashire effectively 45-7 in their second innings and the second was when Glamorgan were 94-2, needing just sixty more to win.

There were several heroes for the Red Rose in coming from the dead to win the match, but the biggest plaudits have to go Glen Chapple. He actually had not had a great start to the season. In the first two matches and the first innings of this one he had taken only 5-203. But he always seems to come up with something big when we need him; in this case he brought himself on with the cause seemingly lost and took three wickets, including both well set batsmen, to set Lancashire on the way to victory. He bowled for the remainder of the innings and then also broke a mini-partnership that was tilting the match back in Glamorgan’s favour. It was a staggering effort.

Although it was Chapple who made the breakthroughs and gave Lancashire a chance it was Simon Kerrigan who finished off Glamorgan with a five wicket haul and nine in the match. It was reminiscent of some of the performances he had in 2011 and in particular the last-gasp win against Hampshire. Kyle Hogg only bowled one over of the run chase, but he was instrumental in giving Lancashire a chance as he scored 47 in the second innings to make the total just large enough to defend.

Ideally this win will serve as a bit of a kick start to Lancashire’s season; now that they have a win and a bit of belief they need to consistently bowl sides out cheaply and start winning matches like the first two where they really did outplay the opposition. This match was not only the first in which they bowled out the opposition twice, it was the first in which they had even come close. Admittedly the rain had intervened in the other two, but this was still the best bowling performance of the year. What will also give Lancashire some heart was that it was not all done on the back of James Anderson and that there was enough time left that even if it had rained it would not have ruined the match. In the meantime they have a few days to enjoy the high of a remarkable win!

Lancashire v Kent preview

After a week off in round two of the County Championship, Lancashire are back in action this week with another home match, this time against Kent. Although there were quite a few positives to be taken from the draw against Worcestershire, Lancs could really do with a win this week. It is early yet, but the last thing we want is to have to make a late push to ensure promotion and I would much rather we get into a position of strength early on. Lancashire did win the last meeting between the two sides, back in 2010.

James Anderson returns to Lancashire’s side this week for the first of two matches allowed by the ECB this year. Not only is it good news for Lancashire that he is being allowed more time than last year, it is probably good news for Anderson as well who will have more time to find his rhythm ahead of the Test summer. Lancashire named a squad of 13 with Anderson simply added to an otherwise unchanged squad from the last match. After Wayne White had a good start to his Lancs career, my guess is that Anderson’s inclusion in the playing XI will probably come at the expense of Kyle Hogg. Given that our batting was much stronger than our bowling against Worcs, however, I would prefer him to replace Steven Croft as an extra bowler. We already had Glen Chapple coming in at nine against Worcs, so there is plenty of batting depth. That’s not to say that Croft really did anything wrong, but I think the balance of the side will be better with the extra bowling option, especially as Kent put up a total of 619 runs for only twelve wickets in their only match (admittedly against Leicestershire). Otherwise, I would name an unchanged side.

Hopefully the Old Trafford pitch has a bit more in it for the seamers this time and hopefully the weather stays away. Both were large factors in the draw two weeks ago and between them made sure there could be no positive result. Unfortunately, there is currently a moderate chance of rain on day one and decent chances over parts of the next three days, so it may be difficult once again to get a result. It’s also supposed to be generally cloudy and quite chilly, so all-in-all not great conditions.

The toss will probably be of some importance; I don’t know how how the pitch looks, but with day one looking the driest of the four the best option is probably to bat and try to put up a big total early. Lancs are certainly capable of this and getting Anderson a chance to bowl with Kent under some scoreboard pressure is probably the best way to win the match. But Kent do have a strong looking batting order, so there certainly are no guarantees. I think a draw is probably the most likely result; Lancashire certainly can win, but I think they will need to breaks with the weather and toss to go their way to do so. Kent should certainly not be written off, but I think Lancashire are the better side and Kent would need a lot to go their way to have a decent shot at victory.

Lancashire in 2012

After the euphoria of 2011, the comedown of 2012 could hardly be more pronounced. From Champions to relegated and with the added pain of Yorkshire going up, meaning no Roses cricket next year as well.

Listening to Lancashire all season, it felt almost like they never could quite ‘click’. They always seemed to be playing a little bit worse than they ought to be and when they improved it was short-lived. Fate did not help at all. Last season Lancashire only lost 200-odd overs to the weather. This year it was about nine times that much; over five full matches worth of time lost. In practice it completely ruined eight matches: against Somerset (twice), Notts, Sussex, Surrey (twice), Worcs and Durham. Not all looked like being Lancashire wins, of course (though the two against Somerset did), and when it didn’t rain Lancashire still lost more often than not. The result can certainly not be blamed on the weather, but it really did not help. The other bits of misfortune were injuries and the schedule. Tom Smith missed most of the season with a hamstring injury and showed at the end of the year just how much that hurt the team. Lancashire finally started hitting their stride and either won or came close to winning their three matches before the T20 break. But that month of pyjama cricket broke their momentum and form.

Still, it would be inaccurate and rather irresponsible to blame fate for Lancashire’s relegation. There were flaws with both the bowling and batting. The batting has looked quite poor as there were a number of dramatic collapses that seemed to all but put Lancashire out of matches. But whilst it is true that the batting was not great, it was probably not as bad as it first appears. The first thing to remember is that the conditions favoured bowlers all year. No team batted as well as one would otherwise expect and Lancashire’s total of 25 batting points was comfortably more than Durham and only one fewer than Nottinghamshire. The biggest problem for Lancashire seemed to be that there was a much greater reliance on one person this year: Ashwell Prince. Prince scored 1,008 run at an average of over 40 in 15 matches. But he had no support; the next highest tally was Steven Croft’s 666 runs at under thirty. The practical upshot was that sometimes the batting would fire and put Lancs in a good position and sometimes there would be an astonishing collapse.

Those collapses are quite memorable, of course, but the bowling was the much larger problem. The summer was so wet that the conditions very much favoured bowlers, but Lancs had a terrible time taking twenty wickets. In sixteen matches they took only twenty wickets only three times. It was very much the bowling that won the title last year, with three bowlers taking over fifty wickets in 2011 and Simon Kerrigan of course taking 24 in just four matches. Whilst it would be a lot to ask for a repeat performance, few of the bowlers even came close. The apparently ageless Glen Chapple took 42 over the course of the year (with a pair of five-fers, ten in one match and a bowling average of 24 over the course of the year) and Kerrigan still managed 44 on what tended to be fairly unhelpful pitches. But he did so with an average over 33 and the next highest wicket total was that of Luke Procter of all people with 25. This is not to say the bowling was uniformly terrible, but they did a terrible job of making the most of good starts. In the first match of the season, Sussex recovered from 13-3 to 300 all out thanks to a fourth wicket stand of 164 and unfortunately it was that which really set the tone for the season. Every match that was not badly rain affected had at least one century partnership for Lancashire’s opposition and usually they occurred after early collapses. Of particular import were Warwickshire’s stand of 224 after being 81-7, Worcestershire’s partnership of 127 after being 93-6 and of course Middlesex’s recovery to 446 after losing three wickets early. The first two probably cost Lancashire the match, and by extension their place in the first division, whilst the third all but broke the back of the season.

There will be some calls for change over the winter, I suspect, but I think restraint is important. There are changes we can make, but I think we only need a few. First is that we will need a replacement for Ashwell Prince, unless we can convince him to return. Whilst we have to back our batsmen to improve next year (we know they can play better than they did this year), they will be very much helped by having someone very good and reliable like Prince again. There aren’t a huge number of options due to the IPL and international commitments, of course, but there are a few who are in similar situations as Prince was and who we might be able to sign. But as I said above the bowling was the bigger problem. Ajmal Shahzad looked a decent addition (especially with Sajid Mahmood having a shocker of a season), but he did not actually come up with a lot of wickets. Kyle Hogg also had a poor season, Tom Smith was injured for much of the year and we seldom had chances to play both Keedy and Kerrigan. It’s probably fair to expect Hogg to have a better season next year. Shahzad and Mahmood are a lot more uncertain, but both are talented. I don’t think there is actually a lot we can do to improve the bowling from a personnel standpoint. There are no English players (and I’m assuming we use our overseas player for a batsman) who spring to mind who are all of available, affordable and a clear improvement to what we have. It’s not ideal, but I suspect we will have to make do with what we have. (And maybe hope we get Jimmy for more than just one match this time.) Really, it should be enough, though, especially in Division Two. I think in most cases one would expect it to have been enough in Division One.

I’m optimistic about Lancashire’s chances next season. Unless something goes very wrong in the winter (eg: Chappie retiring) we will probably be favourites to go straight back up. There are improvements to be made, but I think that sticking with the core of this squad will pay dividends.