Lancashire draw with Worcestershire

In a way, Lancashire started the 2013 season the way they ended the 2012 season: with a rain affected draw. But it did look like a significant improvement over last season and in particular the batting looked better. Lancashire were on top for a lot of the match and by the end they were the only team that had a chance to win.

Although it was a good match overall for Lancs, it was far from being one way traffic and the bowling sometimes lacked penetration as it did last season. Glen Chapple made the slightly odd decision to bowl first and whilst it was certainly not a terrible decision there did not seem to be a huge amount in the wicket for the seamers. They did well to get wickets at regular intervals on the first day, but always seemed to be about a wicket ‘behind’. On the second morning Worcestershire put on nearly a hundred for the seventh wicket to get themselves up to a good score. Although the rest of the match went emphatically Lancashire’s way and suggested that the pitch was quite flat, this was disturbingly reminiscent of the big partnerships that destroyed Lancashire last season. That said, Chapple and Kyle Hogg did bowl very well on the last day and were unlucky to only take one wicket.

The worst that could be said about the batting was that no one went on to get a century. Both openers registered fifties, however, and so did both Ashwell Prince and Simon Katich in the middle order. Those two did brilliantly on the fourth morning to make sure Lancs got a fourth batting point as well. They will certainly have sterner tests as the year goes on, but they could not have asked for a much better start. The fact that Paul Horton and Luke Procter both had good scores was particularly heartening. It was expected that Prince would have a good year and certainly hoped that Katich would. But Horton and Procter both struggled last year (along with much of the batting) and it was not all clear how they would do this year. And, to be fair, it still really isn’t; It has only been one game. But if they can consistently give Lancashire a solid platform that will go a long way to alleviating the problems of last season.

Lancashire do not play in the County Championship next week; they have a three-day friendly across the Pennines before playing Kent at Old Trafford on the 24th. Yorkshire started the season by being bowled out for 96 against Sussex, so this should provide an opportunity to try to get the bowlers into a bit of better form.

LV=CC week seven roundup

Last week in the County Championship saw only one positive result, but this time rain was only one of the factors. Very suddenly, batting conditions around the country appeared to get much easier this round and we had some big scores. This did mean that although we still only got one result, we at least got to see quite a bit of cricket before then and some close run finishes.

Surrey drew with Somerset
Warwickshire drew with Lancashire
Worcestershire drew with Sussex
Kent drew with Northamptonshire
Leicestershire drew with Essex
Yorkshire drew with Hampshire
Derbyshire beat Glamorgan by eight wickets

Warwickshire’s points from their drawn match were enough to put them at the top of the first division table without a lot of other movement in D1. Derbyshire’s victory extended their lead over Yorkshire in Division Two, which now stands at 14 points. Glamorgan are still at the foot of the second division and now have more losses than any county in either division.

My player of the week, who I forgot to name the last few weeks, (might do so retroactively when I have more time) is Paul Horton. Lancashire looked headed for a certain defeat after following-on and he played an absolutely brilliant knock to make sure they got out of danger.

Matches at the Oval and Edgbaston both involved the team batting first scoring over 500 and the other one having to fight to stay in the match. Somerset had centuries from Arul Suppiah and James Hildreth to set up their 512-9 declares whilst Warwickshire had tons by Varun Chopra and Rikki Clarke en route to 557-6 declared. Warwicks, however, took so long to get their runs that they only got three batting points. Surrey fought better than Lancashire, however, with a century at the top of the order from Steve Davies. Eight wickets for Stuart Meaker meant that Surrey had an outside chance of winning, whilst Lancs just needed to bat out a draw. The Red Rose got a brilliant, unbeaten century from Paul Horton to make it comfortable in the end. At New Road, the biggest contribution was probably from the groundsman after the flood waters had receded. Sussex managed to set Worcs a large target thanks to a first wicket stand of 189 in the second innings between Ed Joyce and Chris Nash (the former with an unbeaten century) but there was not enough time for a result.

In the second division, Northamptonshire’s trip to Canterbury saw the visitors take a large first innings lead thanks to David Sales’ 140, but a flat pitch did not leave any time for a result. At Leicester the home side put up 372 in the first innings with 119 of them from Ramnaresh Sarwan, who also scored 98 in the second innings. When Essex responded with 409, however, and from there a result was always unlikely. The match at Headingley ultimately followed a similar story, but started with Hampshire 55-3 and 83-4 in their first innings. Simon Katich, however, scored 196 and with help from Michael Bates’ 103 sent Hants to a huge first innings score. Yorkshire needed a response and got it from Antony McGrath, putting up 399-9 in all. The only match with a result was at Derby where Glamorgan continued their poor run. Batting first, they could not do what so many other sides did only made 236. Martin Guptill and Wayne Madsen both scored centuries as Derbyshire showed just how far below par Glamorgan were. David Wainwright’s 5-51 in the second innings meant that they had an easy chase and won comfortably.

LV=CC week two roundup

It was another very entertaining week of matches in the County Championship this week. Early season conditions favoured the bowlers, especially on the first day as over 70 wickets fell around the country. This went a long way to ensuring that all seven matches had positive results. The full results were:
Nottinghamshire beat Durham by 114 runs
Sussex beat Lancashire by ten wickets
Middlesex beat Surrey by three runs
Warwickshire beat Somerset by two wickets
Derbyshire beat Glamorgan by 130 runs
Gloucestershire beat Hampshire by 33 runs
Kent beat Northamptonshire by an innings and 120 runs

It was a poor start to Lancashire‘s title defence as they were bowled out for 124 on the first day. Whilst this was hardly unusual given the conditions around the country, it still looked like a very bad toss to lose. There was some hope: Lancs had some of the best bowlers in the country last year and they reduced Sussex to 15-3 in reply. Michael Yardy and Ed Joyce but on a stand of 164, however, which probably decided the match. It was an especially good innings by Yardy who not only steadied the ship for Sussex but counterattacked brilliantly. Lancashire have to rue the four catches they put down on the second morning however. Sussex had one other fairly big partnership: 43 for the ninth wicket to end Lancashire’s brief hopes of keeping the deficit relatively in check. Lancashire did not play terribly poorly; credit must go to Yardy and Steve Magoffin whose batting and bowling performances respectively were excellent. Lancs could do with a bit more batting practise, but their biggest area of concern will probably be the fielding. It probably did not decide the match, but they dropped far too many catches. In the end, they only barely avoided an innings defeat. Ashwell Prince’s 58 was the biggest score of the match for Lancs as they only set Sussex a target of one to win.

Notts continued a good start to the season by beating Durham despite being bowled out for 161 in their first innings. Both sets of bowlers made good use of the friendly conditions, however, and that 161 turned out to be good enough for a first innings lead of 32. I think it was not unreasonable to expect more of the same, but instead Notts built an unchaseable total around Michael Lumb’s 131. Given that only three other batsmen in the entire match passed fifty, it was a fantastic innings. Durham started the chase of 368 by collapsing to 30-5 and it was only some good lower order batting that saw them avoid humiliation.

Middlesex‘s derby against Surrey looked like it might be the best match of the round even on the second day and it did not disappoint. It started off as a bit of a slow-burner; batsmen had to play themselves in properly before trying to go on. The top order for both sides did so passably well, though both suffered collapses in the first innings (Surrey’s the more dramatic). Neither, however, resembled the implosions seen in many other matches. It was slow, low-scoring work and very pleasing to see unfold even as I listened to Lancashire’s match. The work of Dawid Malan for Middlesex and Steve Davies for Surrey in getting the only two fifties of the first innings was very impressive in light of the fairly low team totals. The second innings saw the return of the proper collapses, however. Middlesex had a first innings lead of 34, but only set Surrey a target of 141. They needed something special from their bowlers and Tim Murtagh and Toby Roland-Jones just about delivered. It was close though. Rory Hamilton-Brown almost got Surrey across the line after they had been reduced to 22-3 and 68-4. He could not find a partner though and even though he made the second highest score of the match with 63, his departure left Surrey 126-8 and the tail could not quite do enough.

Somerset won the toss against Warwickshire at Edgbaston and chose to bat. Seventeen point four overs later they were 44-5 with Trescothick, Nick Compton and James Hildreth making just 14 between them. Compton at least managed to make his five last 64 balls, which is fairly impressive. I did not think they were going to get to 100, before Philander decided to become an all-rounder and top-scored in the innings with 38. In the end, Warwickshire had to rely on their own tail to get the lead close to 100. Somerset had a chance to set a good total and although they lost their openers cheaply again, they got an excellent hundred (133) from Compton and 93 from Jos Buttler. The pair of them put on 167, but it was a mark of how little help they got from the rest of the batsmen that their joint contribution was over half of the total of 354 all out. With Somerset’s batting, it is probably fair to say that it should have been more. Jeetan Patel’s unbeaten 43 left them rueing that failure. Although Warwickshire had briefly been 190-3, they collapsed in just eight overs to 207-8 and Somerset had a real chance. I think, however, that the more deserving team won.

Derbyshire‘s match against Glamorgan was a case of one semi-competent batting innings winning a match. At the end of day one, Derbyshire had been bowled out for 130 and had reduced Glamorgan to 37-4. They would go on to bowl Glamorgan out for 95 before themselves collapsing (again) to 37-5. Eventually they found some semblance of batting in the lower-middle order, most notably an unbeaten 51 from David Wainwright, and could set Glamorgan over 200 to win. It was not objectively a lot, but in the context of the match all the safe money was on Derbyshire. The extent of Glamorgan’s collapse was still pretty surprising, however. They got off to a decent start and were at one point 92-3. Six overs later, they were all out for 102. Jonathan Clare did most of the damage for Derbyshire, but it was still a spectacular implosion.

Gloucestershire managed comfortably the best performance in the first innings of this round of matches in their trip to Hampshire. They put up 314 all out, thanks mostly to 114 from opener Chris Dent. Despite a solid 74 from Simon Katich, Hampshire’s reply never seemed to really get going and Will Gidman’s 5-48 ensured that they were bowled out 115 in arrears. Gloucs made enough of it, but I’m sure they would have liked to have done more. No one went past fifty in their second innings, and Hampshire were set a not unreasonable 290 to win. Hants’ top order didn’t bother to show up for that chase, however, and found themselves 72-6 at one point. Wicket-keeper Michael Bates and Chris Wood engineered a recovery, but when Will Gidman struck to remove Bates 13 short of the latter’s hundred, the match was all but up.

Kent had the biggest victory of the week over Northamptonshire. Northants won the toss, batted and were bowled out for 132. It was an interesting innings as there were no scores of note and the wickets were shared around the Kent bowlers. Northants possibly scented a comeback when Kent were 35-2, but solid contributions from Ben Harmison, Brendan Nash and Geraint Jones combined with an unbeaten 128 from Mike Powell meant that they trailed by a massive 236 after the first innings. Northants did not make much of an effort to make Kent bat again. Captain David Sales 42 was the highest of only three double-digit contributions to their 116 all out as Matt Coles took 6-51 to achieve the earliest finish (lunch on day three) of the week.

Victory for Notts coupled with defeats for Somerset and Surrey mean that Nottinghamshire now top the first division table with 38 points from two matches. In Division Two, Derbyshire are enjoying one of their best starts to a season in recent times; they sit atop the table with 39 points and two wins from two.

Nick Compton would be a dark horse at best for England’s vacant number six spot, but after two matches he leads the first division in both total runs and average. Jos Buttler’s good, but ultimately just insufficient, innings should also keep him in the selectors’ minds.