Ball one: Another cruel summer for Surrey’s rivals
So we’re halfway to the quiz question we’ve all been waiting for – what connects Kennington and Kansas City? All we need now is for Patrick Mahomes and Travis Kelce to emulate Rory Burns and Ben Foakes and deliver their Superbowl three-peat to match Surrey’s in the County Championship. With Taylor Swift apparently indisposed on Friday, there’s still a chance for somebody to witness both hat-tricks in person.
That tortuous introductory paragraph (surprisingly not done for a bet) fills some space that would otherwise be taken by too familiar a report on another victory and another pennant to a club that seems to win cricket matches irrespective of the players actually doing it.
This round, it was Dan Worrall (again) and Sam Curran who led the seam attack to harvest 20 wickets in the autumn sunshine and Ryan Patel who compiled a century in the upper order while waiting for a late order partner to establish a commanding lead, Tom Lawes at number nine delivering the brief. That the named quartet have made just 26 appearances from 52 available, shows how well oiled a machine retiring director of cricket, Alec Stewart, and head coach, Gareth Batty, have constructed in South London. Their advantages are many, but their excellence cannot be gainsaid.
Ball two: The kids are alright
After three innings defeats on the bounce, the only machine metaphor for Lancashire was a clown car, bits flying off in all directions as it spluttered to a standstill. Keaton Jennings needed to win and, at this stage of the season, might have hoped for opponents with one eye on post-season jobs painting the pavilion or selling Christmas trees. Instead, Somerset arrived at Old Trafford with a first Championship ever in their sights.
Suddenly, Lanky were 140 all out by early afternoon on a hybrid pitch that offered so much to Craig Overton, Lewis Gregory and Kasey Aldridge that last week’s 20 wickets men, Jack Leach and Archie Vaughan, were surplus to requirements. The home fans were enduring another nightmare, while the away support dared to dream. But Tom Bailey and George Balderson each bagged four wickets and, even before the end of the first day, we had a two innings match on our hands, and nails already chewed.
At 21-2, the trap door was creaking, and it creaked again when Josh Bohannon was out with the lead exactly 100. Then something really quite remarkable happened: two young players went all in on anti-Bazball. Harry Singh, 20 and on first class debut, fought his way to 31 in more than three and a half hours and Rocky Flintoff, 16, on his third appearance, dug in for 27 in 100 minutes. Watching the stream, it was compelling cricket, the fight in the boys playing against men all but tangible.
Luke Wells, twice Flintoff’s age but looking three times it, must have watched youth’s lack of impetuosity and been as inspired as I was, making 130 from number seven as Somerset’s adrenaline dissipated across 140 overs in the field, a full 100 of which brought only five successes.
As news filtered in from The Oval, it was no great surprise that the visitors lost their last eight wickets in little more than 40 overs, nor that Wells was their chief destroyer. Lancashire hang on to slim hopes of survival in the last round; for Somerset, attention turns to the One Day Cup Final, but the girl who got away (again) is still in their hearts.
Ball three: Notts to secure division one status?
On paper, Nottinghamshire had the more straightforward job compared to their relegation rivals, long-doomed Kent their opponents, but – plot twist! – events at Canterbury played out pretty much as expected.
Once Haseeb Hameed and Ben Slater had posted four shy of a double century opening stand, it felt like an away win was just a matter of time. If 433 all out was a little disappointing after that start, HH still had the ‘bat big, bat once’ strategy available and, thanks to another fine display from Farhan Ahmed, the follow-on was enforced and 23 points comfortably secured inside three days.
Nottinghamshire host the not mathematically safe (or ‘safe’ as it’s also known) Warwickshire in the last round of the season, while Lancashire will go to New Road to face Worcestershire. Three teams will be eyeing the skies as much as the scoreboard and bonus points may be as much a focus as the final result – always a little unsatisfactory that.
Ball four: Sussex by the sea and in division one
Sussex, gunning for promotion, cannot have been displeased to see Gloucestershire, faces no doubt a little wan just three ‘sleeps’ after winning the Blast against the odds, in the opposition dressing room. Only Chris Dent could pass 50 for a club that had achieved its season’s objective in highly emotional circumstances and had little to play for.
In a division that produces too many draws, Sussex have eight wins, three more than any other club and wholly deserve their ascent to the top table. New captain, John Simpson, and two overseas contractors, Cheteshwar Pujara and Daniel Hughes, have averaged over 50, while Jack Carson, still only 23, has 47 wickets and needs 42 runs this week to pass 500. With Ollie Robinson fit but out of favour with England, there’s threat and control with the new ball too.
After nine years, Hove will host division one cricket in 2025, always a lovely day out, even if you do need an extra layer or five in April.
Ball five: A good year for one of the roses?
Might the Yorkies be waving across the M62 central reservation as white rose replaces red in the top flight in 2025? Such a circumstance seemed impossible when the Tykes went winless through the first half of their fixture list, but five victories in six has given Jonny Tattersall’s men a 15 points cushion over third placed Middlesex, which even the most caricatured of Yorkshiremen would accept makes them favourites to go up.
The latest success, a 186 runs despatch of Glamorgan at Sophia Gardens, was built on a solid team effort. There were half-centuries from Adam Lyth, Finlay Bean, James Wharton, George Hill and Dom Bess, and 15 wickets shared by in-form seamers, Ben Coad and Matthew Fisher.
Momentum, like morale, is probably best discerned in the rear view mirror, although it can be a self-fulfilling prophecy too. But this week’s visitors, Northamptonshire, have a bit of mass x velocity themselves off the back of successive victories. Odds favour a successful send-off for Matthew Fisher and Jonny Bairstow in division one in 2025.
Ball six: Never again! (Again)
Distressing news (if news it really is) concerning racism at Essex County Cricket Club between 2001 and 2010. Zoheb Sharif, Jahid Ahmed and Maurice Chambers have had their careers, indeed their lives, altered since such abuse cannot be unheard just as much as traumatic incidents can be unseen. They deserved better then and they deserve better now, and cricket should be moving every sinew to make good on the debt it owes them.
As for Essex, it has been fined what seems a piffling £100,000, with half of that suspended for two years, a penalty that comes nowhere near serving justice. That said, a points deduction was not available on what I’m willing to call a legal technicality. Fine the club more, and wholly innocent bar staff might be laid off or young players not awarded contracts for next year or cleaners sacked to balance a budget. Why should they pay the price? That would not feel like justice either.
What would is an ostracising from the game of the perpetrators and their enablers. To do so through official, legal routes would be expensive and unlikely to achieve its objective, but cricket is a small world and many people inside and outside the club will know where culpability lies and in what quanta. I’d like to think that the ringleaders never work in the game or in its media, find no invitations to golf days and benefit events in their inboxes, are unwelcome at old players’ dinners and get-togethers. Sod ‘em. And sod anyone else who makes excuses for their cruelty, their inhumanity, their betrayal.
