< 1 minute readLancashire started their must-win-by-a-mile match quite well, but James Harris and Ravi Patel secured a batting bonus point for Middlesex which means we now have a clearer idea of exactly what each team needs to do to survive. Lancashire need to either score 350, or declare with fewer than eight
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Relegation’s what you need
< 1 minute readYou know what we’re doing with that headline, right? That’s your theme for the week. Every time your mind idles, hopefully that’ll be what rises to fill the void. You’re welcome. There’s basically just one thing left to play for in the first division of the County Championship and that’s
Continue readingDurham do the dishes and then take out the recycling
< 1 minute readThe final of the domestic 50-over competition is an odd thing. It took place yesterday, in late September – a fortnight after the semi-finals, three weeks after the quarter finals and a month after the main bit of the tournament. You can see why it works that way, but with
Continue readingMop-up of the day – first-class status and second division performances
2 minute readThe Champions League is on. We managed to watch half of one innings, but it’s such a stupid, managed tournament, it isn’t really sport in any meaningful sense, so it’s back to county cricket. First-class but second-rate In these triple-format days, is first-class status as meaningful as it once was?
Continue readingYorkshire’s County Championship summed up in one line
< 1 minute readNot one of ours, unfortunately. It’s by Cricinfo’s David Hopps – a Yorkshireman hisself. “Their first Championship win for 13 years is a lesson to English cricket, based as it is on a strong commitment to player development – among all ethnic groups, and extending beyond the privileged classes.” Which
Continue readingMop-up of the day – spreading Roses
< 1 minute readThe Pennines have long separated good from bad, but there’s been an odd inversion in county cricket this year. White Rose good Nottinghamshire were the only team who could have prevented Yorkshire from winning the County Championship. Being as Yorkshire are positively monstering them with just one more game to
Continue readingVictory for a city in the summer
< 1 minute readCities disappear in the summer. Winter has cities, summer has counties – or at least that’s the way it used to be. Now Birmingham have won a cricket tournament and we don’t know where we are. The weather has been unseasonably cool this last week. Even the climate’s confused. Our
Continue readingSimon Kerrigan – will they or won’t they?
< 1 minute readMost people’s knowledge of Simon Kerrigan’s bowling amounts to eight overs on his debut. That’s not a huge amount to go off and those overs too in circumstances that can be considered exceptional and therefore perhaps not properly representative of his ability. On the other hand, he still has to
Continue readingMiddlesex are slightly top
< 1 minute readAfter whipping the first division’s whipping boys, Northamptonshire, with their whipping boy whipping whip, Middlesex are now 19 points ahead of Yorkshire and 22 ahead of Sussex, both of whom have a game in hand. Yorkshire would need to win to go top. Sussex would need to really, really handsomely
Continue readingSo Harry Gurney then?
2 minute readThere have been times when we’ve thought we’d learn to come up with better headlines, but we’ve since concluded that it’s just one of those things we’re never going to be very good at. They say you should work on your weaknesses, but often this is just inordinately time consuming
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