INTRODUCTION

At the halfway stage of yesterday’s Royal London Cup fixtures, in accordance with what is now my custom I ventured a set of predictions as to the outcomes. Now I reveal how they fared.

THE OUTCOMES MATCH BY MATCH

Northamptonshire v Warwickshire – Northamptonshire 358-6, Warwickshire 164, Northamptonshire won by 194 runs.
I called this as a Northamptonshire win and was proven correct. The sheer size of the win was a bit of a surprise. Ed Pollock and Alex Thomson joint top-scored for Warwickshire with 36 a piece, while Blessing Muzurabani, Ben Sanderson and Jason Holder each picked uo three wickets for Northamptonshire.

Glamorgan v Somerset – Somerset 261-9, Glamorgan 259, Somerset won by 2 runs.
For the second time in a row Craig Overton followed useful late runs (crucial in this case) with early wickets. When Glamorgan were 41-6 it seemed to be all over, but then David Lloyd (84) and Graham Wagg (62) put on 152 to drag their side back into it. At 202-9 Somerset again looked like winners, but then Glamorgan rallied through their last pair, Lucas Carey and Dutchman Timm Van Der Gugten, who looked to have snatched the game for their side until Carey holed out for 39 to end things with Glamorgan two runs adrift. I had called this as a Somerset win, and I was just proven right. It was an absolute classic match, and credit to Glamorgan for their incredible fight back from 41-6, from where a margin of 200 looked likelier than the eventual two! Scottish medium pacer Josh Davey had a List A best 4-36, Overton (surely player of the match) had 3-51 to go with his priceless 41 not out and Dutchman Roelof Van Der Merwe had 2-36 from 5.1 overs, snaring the final wicket.

Kent v Sussex – Kent 298, Sussex 302-3 (40 overs) – Sussex won by seven wickets with 10 overs to spare.
I got this one wrong – I had called it as a Kent win. The match was won for Sussex by two men, north Wales born Philip Salt (137 not out off 106 balls, he now has 422 list A runs at 42.20 and a strike rate of 108.20 in that form of the game – clearly one to watch for the future, as he is only just 22) and Hastings born Harry Finch (89 off 68 balls, he now has 1,056 list A runs at 42.24 and a strike rate of 78.57 in that form, and is 24 years old). For Kent Matt Milnes took two wickets but also got carted – 73 off nine overs, while wily old Darren Stevens had 1-34 from eight overs.

Leciestershire v Worcestershire – Leicestershire 377-4 from 50 overs, Worcestershire 339 from 46.2 overs, Leicestershire won by 38 runs.
Worcetsreshire fought gamely in the face of a huge total but never managed at any stage to get on terms with the task. 131 from Ross Whiteley was the main contribution, and he was supported by Brett D’Oliveira (grandson of Basil, son of Damian, 57) and Ed Barnard (61). Dieter Klein took 4-72 and Claude Ackerman 3-55 to follow his mighty innings. A correct prediction from me.

Gloucestershire v Middlesex – Gloucestershire 283-7, Middlesex 287-4 from 42.2 overs, Middlesex won by six wickets with 7.4 overs to spare.
I called this one incorrectly, backing Gloucestershire to defend. When the Middlesex score was 103-4 this one was looking fairly good for me, but Steve Eskinazi (107 not out) and Nick Gubbins (98 not out) saw their side to what was in the end a very comfortable victory. Australian seamer Daniel Worrall took 2-30 from six overs, but no one else did anything of significance with the ball.  

Yorkshire v Lancashire – Lancashire 311-6, Yorkshire 310 all out (50 overs exactly) Lancashire won by one run.
Having had a tie in their last game, Yorkshire lost this one by a single run, suffering two run outs at the end to settle it. Tom Kohler-Cadmore scored 97 off 113 balls, Gary Ballance 72 off 64, and Johnny Tattersall 49 off 29 to bring his side very close to the line before being run out. Saqib Mahmood took 3-76 and bowled the crucial final over, legspinner Matt Parkinson took 2-47 from his 10 (a key performance in so close and high scoring a match) and there was a wicket a piece for Graham Onions, Glen Maxwell and Liam Hurt (so new on the scene that his profile is very sketchy – his date of birth is not recorded, not what hand he bats with, nor what style of bowler he is, and given that he too was economical for such a high scooring game – 42 runs off eight overs, this could be the first sighting of future star). I had called this one as Yorkshire win, and a single run saved my bacon and extended my record of calling more correctly than wrongly to a third round of this competition.

Derbyshire v Nottinghamshire – Derbyshire 297-8, Nottinghamshire 299-4 (45.1 overs) Nottinghamshire won by six wickets with 4.5 overs to spare.
I had expected Derbyshire to defend their 297-8, but in the end Nottinghamshire were comfortable winners. Ben Slater made 83 off 100 balls, and then from 173-4 Tom Moores hit 52 not out off 46 balls and skipper Steven Mullaney 68 not out off 47 balls to carry Nottinghamshire to victory. Alfie Gleadall, whose date of birth like that of Liam Hurt is shown as ‘unknown’, but who I can reveal to be left handed batter and right-arm medium fast bowler took 3-43 from seven overs, and no other Derbyshire bowler deserves to have their figures quoted.

Thus I was right with four of my predictions and wrong with three, making my overall tally thus far 12 right and seven wrong, a success rate of 63.16% (63.15789 to five decimal places, they key being that the third decimal is a 7, i..e 5 or greater, so we round up), and I have had more right than wrong on all three occasions I have done this so far, though this time  that was only just the case.

LINKS AND PICTURES

We start with a basic primer on climate science from Parents for Future SE:

My second offering comes from Election Maps UK and shows what our House of Commons would look like under PR:

I have two elections coming up, a local council election in which the four candidates are two Labour and two Tory, meaning that I will vote Labour. I do not yet know who all the candidates in the European election on May 22 are, but if there is a Green to vote for in that I will vote for them. In a general election under our current deeply flawed system, given the nature of my constituency I would have to vote Labour, as only Labour have anything approaching the support base needed to unseat the sitting Tory MP – whereas under PR I would be voting Green.

Now we have my regular sign off…