Posted by This week’s matches varied incredibly. We had fraught, tense, hard-fought draws; ambling draws that were obvious from a mile out; and everything in between. The 2016 County Championship is not yet proving to be a competition in which people win cricket matches.
The fraught, tense, hard-fought draw
Yorkshire gamely went after a tough fourth innings target after Chris Read had gritted, nurdled and punched a hundred from number seven. In so doing, they almost capitulated. But they didn’t. It was a draw.
The other three matches
In Surrey v Durham, Ben Stokes took seven wickets on a pitch where 457 was followed by 607-7 and then 244-6. It’s not really worth paying attention to who made runs because it was basically everyone. The match finished in a draw.
We presume it rained during Hampshire v Middlesex. Both teams batted at three an over, made moderate totals, but ran out of time to resolve things. It was a draw.
Lancashire’s Liam Livingstone made a hundred in his second match after making 70 on his debut the other week. Sadly, even The Great Neil Wagner couldn’t prevent quadragenarian Somerset opener Marcus Trescothick from batting out the match in partnership with the youthful tricenarian, Chris Rogers.
Draw.
Ballwatching
Nottinghamshire were on telly this week, so we got to see a bit more of Jake Ball. Just as we suspected when we read that he was ‘the brisk side of fast-medium,’ he actually appears to be ‘resolutely fast-medium’.
This is okay though. He’s tall and appears to swing and seam it without flitting between good balls and toss ones, so he’s still got plenty going for him. We were hoping he’d have everything going for him, but we hope for a lot of things and almost none of them come to pass.
One time we hoped that there was still water in the kettle and there was. That’s the only positive outcome we can think of off the top of our head.
Highlight of the week
With each passing replay, we had less and less of an idea what the actual balls Jonny Bairstow did to a delivery from Stuart Broad on the final day of the Notts v Yorkshire match. Dropping down on one knee, he seemingly wrist-swept an offside wide through midwicket. For six.
It was a kind of flat-batted flamingo shot played with entirely immobile arms. How he propelled it beyond the ropes is entirely beyond comprehension.
This seems a bit of a wishy-washy doubt-filled way to end proceedings, so we’re instead going to try and add a more definitive note of finality by writing ‘the end’.
The end.
Except it isn’t, because you never said who was top of the table
Nottinghamshire. By a point from Warwickshire, who are two points ahead of Middlesex. Lancashire are a further point back but with a game in hand.
We knew we’d forgotten something. Doing the top-of-the-table thing is a good way to finish as well. We really are going to have to start remembering it before we first click ‘publish’.
Here’s a low quality vine of the Bairstow pingpattooee shot:
https://vine.co/v/ixtPKHTFLOI
As it’s a vine it’s obviously almost impossible to tell what’s going on, but there we are.
That is glorious!
That’s an awristing shot.
It’s a badminton shot. As all badminton players know, power is generated from racquet speed, not force. Once the shuttle has been hit, it matters not how much the racquet slows down as a result. Simply use your wrist and forearm to accelerate the racquet to high speed, and Bob’s your uncle.
(Badminton racquet – 80g, cricket bat – 1500g, apart from that, exactly the same)
I ran into one of my cricket-water-cooler-type mates yesterday at the gym. I asked him if he had seen any county cricket yet this season.
“Not had a chance to get to Lord’s yet this season – probably won’t get there till the end of May, as I’m away this coming week…”, he said,
“…got to see Nottinghamshire v Yorkshire the other day. That young Nottinghamshire fellow who took the wickets looks like good value.”
“Crumbs”, I thought, “wouldn’t have had him down as a chap who’d travel 130 miles north to see a county game.
It wasn’t until the evening, after the match had concluded, that I discovered the Notts v Yorks match had been televised! Still, at least I got to hear the last 45 minutes or so on the radio. Humdinger of a draw.
Jack Burnham made a hundred for Durham. He’s young, I think. That’s my major takeaway from perusing the scorecards. Also, Brett D’Oliveira scored a hundred, which is only really noteworthy because of his last name.
Can I ask someone to explain to me the point of Mark Nicholas’ most recent Cricinfo piece? The title and the last line seem to say that England should be rushing to accept the IPL, but the words in the middle just seem to sort of… exist. And not try to tell or convince the reader of anything. At all.
He’s gone full Ron Manager in the first half. It’s hilarious.
“Cricket is described by many a top commentator across the world with differing style but top 5 are R Shastri, M Nicholas, N Hussain, D Gower, R Arnold.”
This is a line from a comment on that article. Loud, vacuous, repetitive, ……….., crap. Not heard much of Gower….
He then goes on to say, “IPL is by far the best event in yearly cricketing calendar”. And he’s spelled his username wrong.
I don’t think FOREXCELIENCEINCRICKET is a terribly reliable source.
Are you kidding? He’s an excelient source.
Can I ask someone to explain to me the point of Mark Nicholas?
Someone needs to buy hair gel, Daneel. Otherwise where would all that gel go?