A surprisingly easy effort to catch up with the County Championship after several months with our eyes elsewhere

3 minute read

Our calendar says it’s time to check back in on the County Championship.

When we last reported on the first division, all the way back in May, Surrey were top, Kent were bottom and Jordan Cox was the hot topic of conversation.

As we return to it now, Surrey are top, Kent are bottom and Jordan Cox is the hot topic of conversation.

Everyone’s played five more games though. Something must have happened?

Somersecond

We’re not sure we’ve got much to add to that subheading. The most significant development is that at some point in the last few months, Somerset and Essex swapped places. Somerset are second now.

This would probably be a little more exciting if the big Somerset v Surrey game were still to come, but in fact we’ve just missed it – and it was whatever the hell a doozy might be.

Anticipating a turning pitch, Surrey hired Shakib al Hasan for a game and he took nine wickets across Somerset’s two innings. (Surrey use the deluxe temp agency.) Shakib’s efforts promised a manageable fourth innings chase until an injured Tom Banton came in at number 11 and made 46 – the second highest score of the innings – having already top-scored with a hundred in the first dig.

As we remarked earlier in the season, Banton felt like the next big limited overs thing for a brief period a few years back, but hasn’t played for England since 2022. We wondered then whether it was a bit of a foundations thing, like with Jason Roy. If that’s the case, the groundworks have since been going well. He’s made 891 runs at 49.50 so far this season.

Anyway, his partnership with Craig Overton (49*) helped set Surrey 221 to win. Somerset spinners, Jack Leach and Archie “Son of Michael” Vaughan, had shared all 10 wickets in the first innings, so they began that pursuit what you might call ‘watchfully’, making 31 runs in the first 22 overs. Dom Sibley and Ben Foakes then showed England what they were missing with a partnership of 49 runs off 176 balls before seven wickets fell for 17 – Leach and Vaughan again sharing all 10 wickets.

Victory was secured by Somerset with all of five minutes of the game remaining. No word yet on how many points they’ll be docked for making county cricket interesting, but we assume it’ll be plenty.

The win means there’s only eight points in it at the top with two games to go.

The run-in

Somerset play Lancashire at Old Trafford next week and should win because Lancashire are terrible at the minute. After that, they’ve got Hampshire at home. Given Hampshire’s seam-reliant bowling attack, that’ll presumably be another one where they’ll be weighing the production of an interesting pitch against the points that might be stripped for doing so.

Surrey play Durham, who have been solid, at the Oval next week, before a tricky trip to Essex.

Follow things with us by getting our email.