County Championship Permutation Watch: Everyone needs to win

1. Everyone needs to win, but only Middlesex don’t need to win and cross their fingers.

   Middlesex are the only team for whom, if they draw, it’s still justabout worth crossing their fingers.

   1. That would rely on Notts. winning.

      Notts. winning would require them to rebuild a whole new team-brain to replace the one they so comprehensively smashed to pieces somewhere along the road.

      1. …or holding out for a draw, which is more likely in the sense that the world being destroyed tomorrow by nuclear war is more likely than the world being destroyed tomorrow by the Cloverfield monster.

      2. I was rather hoping that you, Balladeer, would hire a small plane and fly over Taunton doing that rain cloud seeding geo-engineering thing for a couple of days.

         Alternatively, if your budget doesn’t quite stretch to a jet, try praying to Chaac the rain God for some helpful rain, especially over Taunton.

         https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chaac

         I suspect that the geo-engineering is a little more reliable as a method, although the Chaac method has been relied upon for longer!

      3. Praying is tried and tested*, Ged – just because cloud-seeding has come along, there’s no need to Chaac it out.

      4. Surely a dozen or so metal tubes bundled together and some dreaming of Organon is the best way. At least that’s what Kate Bush says.

      5. Can we have some of that rain in Birmingham, please?

         Although I think Chaac/Tlaloc’s aim might be off a bit, I’ve just got drenched in Salford, but the forecast for Edgbaston looks worryingly good.

2. If Yorkshire get 300-350 and win, and Somerset win, they’ll be level on points and wins. What happens then?

   1. Somerset are champs by virtue of more wins.

      1. They both would have 6 wins, if everything else is equal if comes down the the quality of the food at lunch and tea. they vote on Somerset cream teas-v- Yorkshire pudding with onion gravy

      2. Yes, Somerset are champs if level points with Yorkshire, but by virtue of fewer losses.

      3. Apparently I can’t count. Oops.

3. Apparently one of the players in these games was allowed a runner? I thought they were banned in all forms of cricket (unless by consent of the opposing captain).
   Did I miss a rule change?

   1. Just international cricket, I thought?

      Anyway, there are some round here who would lobby for their return:
      http://www.espncricinfo.com/page2/content/story/521031.html

      1. Just international? Wow I was denying the other team runners all year last season…

4. We’ll look back on all of this one day.

   1. “Remember when Sam made that comment?”

5. Can anybody tell me the PERMUTATIONS for the bum end of the table?

   If Bears and Lightning draw at Edgbaston, what needs to happen elsewhere in order for Bears to escape the trap door?

   1. In that situation, the Bears would need plain old Hampshire not to win.

   2. Hampshire not to win, I think.

      They look on course for winning at the moment.

6. Everyone appears to have missed the most important point made in this post: Tim Bresnan is only 31!? That’s mental.

   He last played a test three years ago at 28. I know he got an injury, but why did he never get back in the test side – or why is he at least never talked about as a possibility? This is a genuine questions – what are the reasons – rather than a rhetorical one calling for his recall.

   1. Indeed, he would always run in all day if asked to. Running into the breeze and through brick shithouse walls, indeed. He could’ve been England’s The Great Neil Wagner.

      1. Just coming into his prime.

         Or at least he would be if the elbow injuries (think it was elbow) hadn’t blunted him a touch. That blunting is, presumably, sufficient for him not to be considered a viable option unless he conclusively proves otherwise.

      2. I am the same age as Tim Bresnan. I, too, continue to be cruelly overlooked by the selectors. Probably for different reasons.

7. Another example of textbook defensive play from Brezzy-lad:

   http://ichef.bbci.co.uk/onesport/cps/624/cpsprodpb/124A1/production/_91331947_bresnan_getty.jpg

   Head over the ball, watching it right under the nose, nice straight front elbow. Perfection.

8. Middlesex starting to look distinct third favourites now, especially if they continue to drop everything that comes their way… the permutation pendulum swinging back towards Yorkieland? I’d still have Somerset in the box seat as things stand, but I’m rather biased.

9. Incredible scenes at the Home of Corks.

   1. I can’t watch, listen, concentrate, spake, or do anything else. Except type a comment here. Oooooooh.

10. Assuming Brezzy-lad or Siders gets this seminal run, the only way this is going is a contrived result at Lord’s, isn’t it?

    1. If it’s a draw at Lord’s, do Somerset take the trophy?

       1. Yes, assuming we beat Notts.

       2. Now it’s a Lord’s draw or bust for Somerset.

       3. No chance then. Both sides at Lord’s need to win. Weather aside, the Cidermen are stuffed.

11. Get in there, you Geordies/Mackems/Monkey Hangers/Smoggies (unless that’s actually North Yorkshire) etc.

12. Robson gone for a gozzer.

    This is Yorkshire’s title.

    1. Compton straight outta there too. Middlesex rolling over and having their soft southern tummies tickled.

       1. Nice reference.

13. Super Foxes!

    Just thought I’d join in.

    Go, er, Somerset, I guess. And…Hampshire?

14. We’re all now just doing that annoying Twitter thing of saying what’s happening.

    Lancs 5-1 chasing 347.

    Durham 109-6.

    Youuuuu Beeeeears.

    1. You failed to accurately say what was happening, Sam. Was that done deliberately in protest at the Twittification of King Cricket?

       1. Shit. Ignore me. I’m still hungover from the Royal London One Day Cup final.

       2. Yoooouuu Beaaarrrrrwithasorehead!

15. Let us say that three sides were in contention for the Premier League title, and in the final round two were playing each other. They both need to win to get the title, but for some strange rule-related reason I’m not going to invest much time inventing, they each also need a certain number of goals.

    After they’ve been playing a while, some goals have been scored but a mutually useless draw still looms since news comes in of the third rival running away with their match, the managers concoct a plan. They allow their teams to “swap” a couple of soft goals to ensure the goals scored criterion is satisfied, then each side’s entire defence hobbles off the pitch “injured” after all the attacking subs have been put on, in order to guarantee one side or the other surely win rather than the game petering out to a draw.

    If this happened then I’m sure there’d be hell to pay – the league might impose penalty points, managers and players who went along with it could face bans, and so on.

    Do hope that Lord’s doesn’t finish with a contrived chase. Even if it turns out to be a tight one, I think it’d spoil things. I’d rather they be rained to a draw, or Yorkshire smite Middlesex so dramatically there’s no need to concoct an artificial chase.

    1. Are all declarations contrived chases in your opinion, Bailout?

       If not, at what point in the behavioural/motivational spectrum does a declaration become a contrived chase?

16. Surely a contrived chase is when you feed the opposition easy runs through donkey-drop bowling?

    1. Yes this is what I was getting at. The radio commentators spent a good chunk of the day discussing possible contrivals, right down to “how should Middlesex bat, in various circumstances depending on possible Yorkshire totals, in order to improve their captain’s negotiating power in the contrival discussion”.

       I couldn’t think of a sensible footballing equivalent of “declaration bowling” though.

       At any rate, commentators thought that if Yorkshire had got a slender first-innings need and Middlesex batted cautiously to just overturn it by close of play this evening, with perhaps one wicket down, then Middlesex would be able to persuade Yorkshire to “allow” them to amass a half-decent total tomorrow so long as Yorkshire were given a fair time to chase it. If Middlesex were to be in such a position with a couple of wickets down, then Yorkshire could argue that “we might well be able to win the match from here without any assistance from this negotation, ergo you need to concede more” – and in that circumstance, the Middlesex captain would have to agree that Yorkshire could concede fewer runs before the chase begins.

       All sounded a bit smoke-filled-roomy to me.

       1. The smoke-filled roomy/donkey bowling stuff is prohibited now.

          But setting very attacking fields so that you either take the wickets or concede runs which effectively add some time to the game is not prohibited.

          One of those humdingers occurred at the Oval in 2009 and was one of the most exciting days of county cricket I have ever seen. Eerily similar match position at the end of day 3 to the one we face today at Lord’s btw:

          http://www.espncricinfo.com/ci/engine/current/match/382995.html

          On that occasion Daisy and I went along expecting to see a draw pan out before going to the theatre – we were all dressed up/picniced up with no place to go because the test match had finished well early. In the end we saw a last-ball humdinger of a draw and nearly missed the theatre that evening.

       2. What an extraordinary scorecard. Even more so after doing some mental arithmetic on the totals and checking the FOWs. Wouldn’t Somerset like a repeat of that?

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