A look at John O’Groats and its environs – pics from my first full day of this Scottish sojourn.
This post looks at my first full day of this Scottish sojourn, and at a walk we did from John O’Groats to the beginning of Duncansby Head. Duncansby Head is most north-easterly point of the British mainland, while a few miles down the road is Dunnet Head, the most northerly point of the British mainland.
THE END OF BRITAIN
Other than it’s geographical location John O’Groats itself has rather little to recommend it (the name derives from a 15th century Dutchman Jan de Groot – the dutch Groot being pronounced the same as groat, which way back when was a small silver coin worth fourpence), but the walk out towards Duncansby Head is interesting though rough in places. There is a lot of bird life in these parts that one would see no where else in Britain – birds that are mainly creatures of the arctic but which sometimes come south.
I chose some beers from the John O’Groats brewery (I opted for an oatmeal stout which in a quite dreadful pun is named ‘Deep Groat’).
Today as you will find has been much busier,but yesterday I was not fully recovered from being in transit for 23 hours.
An account of a journey to Scotland that almost went off the rails before it had really started.
Welcome to this first post in a series I shall be putting up about the holiday I am currently enjoying in Scotland with my parents. I am up here for a week which includes my birthday (the day itself is tomorrow, and it is my 46th). We are staying just outside John O’Groats. This post tells the story of my journey up here to set the scene.
PLANNING
The nearest the railway gets to to John O’Groats are the two northern outposts of Wick and Thurso, and these days the end of that line runs as follows: Georgemas Junction, Thurso, Georgemas Junction, Wick, so it made sense to arrange to travel to Thurso and from Wick. I booked from London to Thurso to incorporate an overnight journey, and then later from Wick to King’s Lynn. Thus I had to travel from King’s Lynn to London to connect with the overnight train from Euston. My plan was to get the 17:40 from King’s Lynn and have almost two hours in which to progress along the Euston Road from King’s Cross and on to the train (going onto the underground to travel one stop is in this case literally worse than useless – the interchanges between overground and underground at King’s Cross and vice versa at Euston are both lengthy. Probably the least bad way to do it by public transport would be to use the Circle/Hammersmith & City/ Metropolitan to Euston Square and cross Euston Road at surface level. However it is a fairly short walk along the Euston Road and that method is undoubtedly best…
BEST LAID PLANS O’ MICE AND MEN GANG AFT AGLEY
I boarded the 17:40 from Lynn to London without issue, but then the problems hit. First our departure was delayed because of power problems in the Finsbury Park area, then when we were finally cleared to depart our driver was instructed to run as a shuttle between Lynn and Cambridge, and those of us needing to get to London had to change to a Greater Anglia train. It was soon obvious from the stated timings of this service that staying on to Liverpool Street, from whence I would have to travel to Euston Square was a non-starter, so the only hope of avoiding a long delay, the cost of a night at the Holiday Inn on Euston Road and the cost a new single to Thurso the following day was to change at the last stop before Liverpool Street, Tottenham Hale, and get the Victoria line to Euston. Fortunately the problems between Lynn and London had used up my allocation of misfortune and I made it to my seat on the overnight train. Although this train was fractionally late into Inverness I still had over an hour and a half there before the final public transport leg of my journey to Thurso began. This, the sole purely Scottish leg of the journey, went absolutely smoothly and the train arrived in Thurso precisely when it was supposed to.
SOLUTION TO A TEASER
In my last post I included a teaser from brilliant.org and a little addition of my own:
A small additional question: can you identify the four mathematicians after whom Carl, Leonhard, Emmy and Sophie are named (answers to both parts of this question in my next post).
Here is Chew-Seong Cheong’s published solution to the main problem:
As for my little addition: Carl is quite clearly from Carl Friedrich Gauss, Leonhard is equally obviously a tribute to Leonhard Euler, Emmy is Emmy Noether, a great German mathematician of the early 20th century and Sophie is Sophie Germain, who has a class of prime numbers named after her. Sophie Germain primes are those primes where if you multiply them by two and add one you also get a prime number.
PHOTOGRAPHS
These photos comprise one taken en route to King’s Lynn station, two taken on the Victoria line train between Tottenham Hale and Euston, a number taken between Stirling and Inverness on the overnight train, a number from the Inverness to Thurso train and a couple taken at the house where we are staying:
The King’s Lynn picture
London Underground centred on the Victoria line.
The Victoria line
The Stirling to Inverness pics start here.
The Inverness planter – the next pic starts the Inverness-Thurso leg.
Station art at Thurso – the remaining pictures are from after the public transport section of the journey.
The clock at the house we are staying in.
A decorative pewter plate at the house we are staying in.
A look at Surrey v Gloucestershire, a mathematical teaser, an article and some photographs.
Although I am giving some details from a cricket match and have used that as my title this is not exclusively a cricket article. I also wish to take the opportunity to welcome any new readers who may come to the site as a result of an article about me in the Lynn News, a screenshot of which is the feature image of this post. Also, I am going off on holiday later today, to northern Scotland (I will be travelling on an overnight train for some of the journey), and posting may be limited for the next eight days for that reason.
SURREY V GLOUCESTERSHIRE
This match has seen some dramatic swings in the just over four sessions it has been going for. At 105-1 Surrey looked in control, at 183-5 the pendulum had swung towards Gloucestershire, and by the close yesterday at 285-5 it was evenly poised. Hashim Amla, the former South African international, had a ton to his name by the close and Jamie Overton at n07 reached 50 off the final ball of the day. Overton fell to the first ball of the morning, which brought Sean Abbott to the crease. Gloucestershire then made a very odd call, seeking to keep Amla off strike to attack Abbott who is a decent lower order batter and had been sent in ahead of someone with 10,000 FC career runs to his name. This backfired horribly, Abbott making 40 out of a stand of 61. His dismissal at 346 brought Rikki Clarke (he of the 10,000 FC runs) to the crease, and at the moment he and Amla are still together. The score is now 385-7, with Amla closing in on 150. To come are the two specialist spinners, Virdi and Moriarty. Gloucestershire have been excellent thus far this season, but it is hard to see any way for them to win this game from here.
A MATHEMATICAL TEASER
I regularly feature problems I have encountered on the website http://www.brilliant.org here, sometimes adapated, and I do so again today:
A small additional question: can you identify the four mathematicians after whom Carl, Leonhard, Emmy and Sophie are named (answers to both parts of this question in my next post).
PHOTOGRAPHS
I always include photographs in my blog posts, and I have some for you now:
A look at the England number three position where for once there are a number of good options, the reverse of the usual situation through my time following the team.
In this post I deal with a topic well known to all who have followed the England men’s cricket team for any length of time: who will bat at number three going forward? However, this is time the question is apposite for the reverse of the usual reason.
ENGLAND’S NUMBER THREE
The number three position has traditionally been a very tough one for England to fill. In the 1960s it was usually either Dexter at three and Barrington at four or vice versa, but since then it has been an almost continual problem. David Steele did well there in 1975-6, Chris Tavare did what was asked of him in the early 1980s – namely give the order something in the way of backbone, David Gower had one superb series there against Australia in 1985, Michael Vaughan made the position his own in the early 2000s, and a decade later Jonathan Trott was as good a number three as England have had in my lifetime. More recently we have seen Joe Denly there playing a holding role to ensure that the opposition bowlers were not instantly into England’s middle order, and this winter in India with Burns recently returned from a layoff we saw Jonathan Bairstow batting there and failing horribly. Suddenly however there appear to be a wealth of options.
NUMBER THREE PRESENT AND FUTURE
The current incumbent is Zak Crawley, who will bat there against New Zealand behind the opening pair of Burns and Sibley. Crawley scored 267 from no three against Pakistan last summer, but has done little since with Lasith Embuldeniya having his number in the Sri Lanka series, and save for one fifty India giving him a thoroughly miserable time. If Crawley does not produce significant runs against NZ then his place is definitely in jeopardy. There are at least three players who are in the running for his slot by dint of batting superbly there for their counties:
Tom Abell: The Somerset captain was placed at number three with two other Toms, Banton and Lammonby, opening at the start of this season. Banton has already been dropped from opening though did subsequently feature as keeper in one match. Lammonby has played one decent innings this season, and his strong start in first class cricket (459 runs at 51.00 in his first six matches) has been badly tarnished. He is young enough to bounce back, but currently an England call up looks a long way away. Abell at number three, and often with the innings beginning to disintegrate around him has scored over 500 runs this season at an average of better than 60 and is looking every inch an England number three in waiting.
James Bracey: The Gloucestershire batter and occasional wicket keeper was on the fringes of the England squad last season, spending a lot of time in bio-secure bubbles as a reserve. He has continued to impress from number three this season and has been named in the squad for the New Zealand series.
Nick Gubbins: The gritty Middlesex batter has had a superb season batting at three, and his masterly 124 on the final day of the last match against Surrey turned a situation in which Middlesex were hoping to avoid defeat and fearing the worst into one in which Middlesex had a definite sniff of victory before the rain made its final intervention, rendering the chase just too steep.
Of the three named, Abell and Bracey (already in the squad) are both in with a strong chance of being selected. Gubbins is an outside shot, but there seems little doubt that given the opportunity he could do a solid job for England.
SOLUTION TO A TEASER
In my last post I included the following teaser, adapted from brilliant.org:
This post looks at such play as there has been in the latest round of championship fixtures, which have been heavily affected by the weather – there have been bands of rain sweeping across Britain, coming in from the west although by some freak my corner of northwest Norfolk has largely escaped, with only Friday being really wet.
THE EARLY GAME
Hampshire v Leciestershire was supposed to run from Wednesday to Saturday. In fact only a tiny amount of cricket was possible. Hampshire scored 233 in the first innings, bowled Leicestershire out for 84, and forfeited their second innings, leaving Leicestershire 22 overs to score 150 to win. Leicestershire made no serious effort to take on this chase on the game was drawn.
AROUND THE GROUNDS
A number of games have been so badly hammered by the weather that there is no real chance of a result. Kent v Glamorgan and Northamptonshire v Lancashire have already been confirmed as draws, though the former saw an amazing performance from Darren Stevens. Kent at low water mark were 93-7 in their first innings, but ended up tallying 307. Stevens, at the age of 45 scored 190, with 15 sixes and 15 fours. He shared a ninth wicket stand of 166 with Miguel Cummins, whose share of that partnership was one not out. Stevens then added the wicket of Marnus Labuschagne to his share of the spoils. Nottinghamshire v Worcestershire, Durham v Derbyshire and Essex v Warwickshire are all headed the same way, and it will take miracles for any of those games to yield definite results. Gloucestershire v Somerset is likely to be a draw as well, but the way Gloucestershire are collapsing means that it is not dead yet – Somerset scored 300-8 declared, with Tom Abell scoring his first century of the season (overall he now has over 500 runs at an average of more than 60 for the season), and Gloucestershire are 27-6 in reply. That leaves the London derby, in which the Surrey openers, Burns and Stoneman have been utterly dominant – they put on 135 in each innings, equalling the highest ever identical opening stands in FC history, a record set in 1979 by Kepler Wessels and John Barclay of Sussex. Surrey declared just before lunch today at 259-2, setting Middlesex 290 (full scores, Surrey 190 and 259-2 dec, Middlesex 160 and 28-1). Burns completed his first century of the season.
A POTENTIAL ENGLAND NO3
Somerset started this season with a plan for their top order – three guys all answering to Tom, Lammonby, Banton and Abell at 1,2 and 3. Banton has already fallen by the wayside, his career as a first class opener over almost before it began. Lammonby has managed one good score all season, and his dismissal in the game currently in progress, run out going for one that was never there, was the product of a scrambled mind. The one to prosper has been Tom Abell who is handling batting at no3 like one born to perform that task. Crawley remains the man in possession for England, but if he does not score runs against NZ then England may decide that change is needed, and Abell would surely be the logical person to turn to in that case: he is just entering the prime years of a cricketer’s career, he is batting superbly at no3 and several of his best scores have come in very testing situations, all of which give him the appearance of a test no3 in waiting.
A MATHEMATICAL TEASER
This problem comes from brilliant.org, but I have added a bonus element as well as slightly tweaking the setting:
A brief note on ‘concatenation’: in a mathematical context it is represented by an equals sign flipped through 90 degrees and it means that the two digits between which it appears are joined to form a single number.
Additional ‘bonus’ question: Once you have worked out the answer to the main problem, if one of the two sums cannot be solved under the given conditions what extra operations would need to be permitted to make it solvable? Full explanation in my next blog post.
The first part is quite easy: problem A is resolved simply by using the concatenation symbol to turn the 1 and 2 into 12 and adding the three to get 15. Problem B cannot be resolved (the biggest number you can get without concatenation is 7 (3 x 2 +1 = 6+1 = 7) and the only numbers you can generate by concatenating are 321 (all numbers used, obviously hopeless), 32 which leaves with with one which enables you to finish with either 31, 32 or 33 and 21, which leaves the three, which appears at the beginning. The only integers you can generate with the three and the 21 this way round are 24 or -18.
For the second part you need to allow a minimum of three more operators: square roots and floor or ceiling functions (you only need the latter, but the two operations come as a package). The floor and ceiling functions are respectively the nearest integer below an actual answer and the nearest integer above an actual answer. With these you can concatenate the two and the one to form 21, the square root of 21 is approximately 4.58, the ceiling function of which is 5, and you have the three unused to multiply and make 15.
This post looks at such play as there has been in the latest round of championship fixtures, which have been heavily affected by the weather – there have been bands of rain sweeping across Britain, coming in from the west although by some freak my corner of northwest Norfolk has largely escaped, with only Friday being really wet.
THE EARLY GAME
Hampshire v Leciestershire was supposed to run from Wednesday to Saturday. In fact only a tiny amount of cricket was possible. Hampshire scored 233 in the first innings, bowled Leicestershire out for 84, and forfeited their second innings, leaving Leicestershire 22 overs to score 150 to win. Leicestershire made no serious effort to take on this chase on the game was drawn.
AROUND THE GROUNDS
A number of games have been so badly hammered by the weather that there is no real chance of a result. Kent v Glamorgan and Northamptonshire v Lancashire have already been confirmed as draws, though the former saw an amazing performance from Darren Stevens. Kent at low water mark were 93-7 in their first innings, but ended up tallying 307. Stevens, at the age of 45 scored 190, with 15 sixes and 15 fours. He shared a ninth wicket stand of 166 with Miguel Cummins, whose share of that partnership was one not out. Stevens then added the wicket of Marnus Labuschagne to his share of the spoils. Nottinghamshire v Worcestershire, Durham v Derbyshire and Essex v Warwickshire are all headed the same way, and it will take miracles for any of those games to yield definite results. Gloucestershire v Somerset is likely to be a draw as well, but the way Gloucestershire are collapsing means that it is not dead yet – Somerset scored 300-8 declared, with Tom Abell scoring his first century of the season (overall he now has over 500 runs at an average of more than 60 for the season), and Gloucestershire are 27-6 in reply. That leaves the London derby, in which the Surrey openers, Burns and Stoneman have been utterly dominant – they put on 135 in each innings, equalling the highest ever identical opening stands in FC history, a record set in 1979 by Kepler Wessels and John Barclay of Sussex. Surrey declared just before lunch today at 259-2, setting Middlesex 290 (full scores, Surrey 190 and 259-2 dec, Middlesex 160 and 28-1). Burns completed his first century of the season.
A POTENTIAL ENGLAND NO3
Somerset started this season with a plan for their top order – three guys all answering to Tom, Lammonby, Banton and Abell at 1,2 and 3. Banton has already fallen by the wayside, his career as a first class opener over almost before it began. Lammonby has managed one good score all season, and his dismissal in the game currently in progress, run out going for one that was never there, was the product of a scrambled mind. The one to prosper has been Tom Abell who is handling batting at no3 like one born to perform that task. Crawley remains the man in possession for England, but if he does not score runs against NZ then England may decide that change is needed, and Abell would surely be the logical person to turn to in that case: he is just entering the prime years of a cricketer’s career, he is batting superbly at no3 and several of his best scores have come in very testing situations, all of which give him the appearance of a test no3 in waiting.
A MATHEMATICAL TEASER
This problem comes from brilliant.org, but I have added a bonus element as well as slightly tweaking the setting:
A brief note on ‘concatenation’: in a mathematical context it is represented by an equals sign flipped through 90 degrees and it means that the two digits between which it appears are joined to form a single number.
Additional ‘bonus’ question: Once you have worked out the answer to the main problem, if one of the two sums cannot be solved under the given conditions what extra operations would need to be permitted to make it solvable? Full explanation in my next blog post.
PHOTOGRAPHS
My usual sign off…
Having had both doses, just for the record, I had one day of fractionally elevated temperature after the first dose and no side effects at all after the second.
Nottinghamshire v Worcestershire has progressed while I have been preparing to put this post up – Worcs, all out for 80 in the first innings are 106-4 in their second, still 214 away from avoiding an innings defeat, and suddenly definitely looking at defeat.
A look at the England squad for the New Zealand series and possible XIs from it.
This post is mainly devoted to looking at England’s squad to face New Zealand in the upcoming test series, but I have one thing to do first:
LYNN NEWS CHARITY OF THE YEAR 2021
The votes for this have been counted and the result is in, and NAS West Norfolk, of which I am branch secretary are the winners!
THE ENGLAND SQUAD
Here, courtesy of cricinfo.com (read their article by clicking here) is the squad:
The above contains few surprises and little in the way of controversy. England have left themselves with no genuine all rounder (Craig Overton comes closest, but although he is an effective lower middle order batter for his county I do not see him as a serious contender for a slot above no8 in an England batting order) and with only one spin option, Jack Leach. I am not surprised that they did not feel the need to name two specialist spinners, but would have liked to see Critchley included as a possibility for a no7 batter/ fill in bowler role. In view of the decision to not call on anyone who had played IPL the lack of a genuine all rounder is not surprising, but there could have been little harm in considering the merits of Ryan Higgins. It is now time to look at…
CHOOSING AN XI
There are three basic variations here: gamble on a slightly substandard batting line up to ensure the presence of five genuine bowling options (Overton bats seven), rely on four bowling options including Leach, or, a different form of gamble to our first option, rely on four seamers as the only bowling options. The XIs could look as follows:
The five bowler combo: Sibley, Burns, Crawley, *Root, Pope, +Foakes, Overton, Robinson, Stone, Leach, Anderson.
A balanced bowling quartet: Sibley, Burns, Crawley, *Root, Pope, +Foakes, Lawrence, Robinson, Stone, Leach, Anderson
An all seam bowling quartet aiming at maximising batting strength: Sibley, Burns, Crawley, *Root, Pope, +Foakes, Lawrence, Overton, Robinson, Stone, Anderson… 3a) An all seam bowling quartet: Sibley, Burns, Crawley, *Root, Pope, +Foakes, Lawrence, Robinson, Stone, Broad, Anderson… 3b) An all seam bowling quartet including two genuine speedsters: Sibley, Burns, Crawley, *Root, Pope, +Foakes, Lawrence, Overton, Stone, Wood, Anderson.
Myself given that even without ace left armer Trent Boult being available for them NZ will feature a formidable bowling unit I consider playing Overton at seven to be very high risk and would not recommend it. I am also not entirely comfortable with an all seam attack (if the proverbial gun to the head proposition forced to me to go this route I would opt for combination 3b above, with Robinson maybe playing ahead of Overton), so my first choice combo would be no2. Please note that in the 7/4 combos I have Foakes at six and Lawrence at seven because I want someone between Foakes and the bowlers and because I believe Lawrence is better suited to producing the kind of controlled aggression often needed when batting with the tail.
A look at the County Championship and the England situation in the light of two recent developments, plus some photographs.
Another round of County Championship fixtures concluded yesterday, and there was mixed news, some of which impacts on the England side. Yesterday was also a big day for this blog, courtesy of this post – do read it if you haven’t already.
COUNTY HIGHLIGHTS
Overall the weather won the last round of fixtures quite convincingly. However, Middlesex’s incompetence with the bat (a gritty first innings 50 by Gubbins apart) enabled Hampshire to win by seven wickets with over a day to spare in that one. In the other match in that group barely one eighth of the total scheduled playing time was actually usable, Surrey reaching 206-4 v Somerset before the weather made it’s final intervention. Essex played splendidly to account for Derbyshire, making up for huge rain delays by racking up 412-3 declared from 76 overs, Dan Lawrence with 150, and then bowling Derbyshire out twice, with Harmer taking 12 wickets in the game, including a career best 9-80 in the first innings. In the other game in that group Durham thrashed Worcestershire, temporarily going top of the group, although two of the teams in hottest pursuit of them have a game in hand. Derbyshire are now 26 points adrift at the bottom, more than a maximum points win, with just four games to play. Sussex v Kent ended in a tame draw when Kent declined to set Sussex a run chase on the final afternoon even though a draw could do them no good whatsoever. In that Kent second innings Leaning scored a ton, while Crawley and Oliver Graham Robinson each made scores of 85. The other match in that group was also drawn, Carlson steering Glamorgan away from potential danger with an unbeaten 88 in their second innings.
THE ENGLAND ANGLE
The ECB have let it be known that players who were involved in the IPL are unlikely to feature in their squad for the NZ test series which will be announced on Wednesday. Also Jofra Archer is out of that series because his elbow flared up during the Kent second innings, restricting him to just five overs. My opinion on this latter is that England now need to handle Archer with great care – they can probably do well without him in English conditions, so the focus should be on ensuring that he will be fit to travel down under for The Ashes. Also uncertain is Dominic Sibley, recovering from injury. The ECB have said they will announce 16 names, so I present my own options, a front 14 and two back up names:
Dominic Sibley – right handed opening batter. If he is fit he plays and on that basis he should be in the list.
Rory Burns – left handed opening batter. he has a bit to prove, but a strong start to the domestic season with Surrey suggests that he deserves continued selection.
Zak Crawley – right handed top order batter. He has some recent good form, and talk of dropping him is premature to say the least.
*Joe Root – right handed batter, captain, occasional off spinner. England need their skipper and they need him batting in his preferred position at no4.
Ollie Pope – right handed batter, occasional wicket keeper. In the pink of form for Surrey, he has to play.
+Ben Foakes – right handed batter, wicket keeper.
Three possibilities for this position depending on one’s attitude: Ryan Higgins, right handed batter, right arm medium pace, would be the genuine all rounder if one wants five front line bowling options available. Matt Critchley is having a great season with the bat for Derbyshire and bowls occasional leg spin which might be good for a few overs in a test match. Finally, the cautious option is to accept having only four genuine bowling options and play Dan Lawrence, in great form with the bat, in this position.
Two possibilities here: Oliver Edward Robinson, right arm fast medium and a decent lower order batter is possibly favourite for the position, but Craig Overton, also a right arm fast medium bowler and probably a better bat than Robinson will also have his advocates.
Olly Stone – right arm fast bowler, right handed lower order batter. With Archer unavailable, Stone who has been bowling well for Warwickshire is my choice for the out and out speedster role.
Jack Leach – left arm orthodox spinner, left handed batter. With due respect to Parkinson, Carson and Virdi who have all done good things with the ball for their counties recently ‘the nut’ still has to be first choice spinner for England.
James Anderson – right arm fast medium, left handed tail end batter. The experienced leader of the attack who will be expected to take the younger pace bowlers under his wing and pass on tips of the trade to them.
The above if you have followed carefully comprises 14 names, so we need two more. One of those has to be a top order batter, and for me although others will have their advocates the fact that James Bracey could also don the gauntlets if needed gives him the nod. My 16th name to complete my own squad given the circumstances, is Matt Parkinson, the Lancashire leg spinner, as acknowledged second choice spinner.
My write up of yesterday’s tour round Watatunga Wildlife Reserve near Watlington in Norfolk.
Watlington, just down the A10 from King’s Lynn, might seem like an unlikely place to see interesting wildlife, but it harbours a secret, accessed by means of an prepossessing looking gravel track that leads to a carpark and reception centre both of which are within eye- and earshot of the A10…
THE WATATUNGA WILDLIFE RESERVE
This establishment, whose website has the strapline “Conservation Today for Wildlife Tomorrow” is explored by motorized buggy, which means that you need at least one person in your group to have a full driving license (also the walk from Watlington station would take some time and a lot of it is along a busy road with no footpath) and is home to a range of interesting species (birds and herbivorous mammals only).
Yesterday a number of us from NAS West Norfolk got to experience this. We used five four seater buggies and one six seater for our groups, with me sharing a buggy with our branch chair and her son. We had a guide who told us what could be seen. After a stretch along a sand track and then through a tunnel which was ankle deep in water we got to the reserve proper and we were not disappointed – lots of wonderful creatures were indeed on show.
After our arrival back at the reception area I got a lift back to the train station, arriving just in time to catch the 18:23 to King’s Lynn, meaning I was home just before seven.
PHOTOGRAPHS
Even with the difficulties imposed by being in a moving vehicle (with occasional stops, but strictly no getting out of the vehicle at any point) I got some splendid pictures:
I hope you enjoy these pictures of the wonderful wildlife of Watatunga, just as I thoroughly enjoyed seeing the creatures yesterday, even in less than ideal weather.
A look at the county championship, solution to yesterday’s mathematical teaser and plenty of photographs.
The game between Somerset and Surrey has just got underway after the first four sessions fell victim to the weather which means that all matches now have some play. This post scouts round the grounds to see what is going on.
AROUND THE GROUNDS
Essex v Derbyshire: Essex batting first are 138-1 after 34.5 overs (no play yesterday). Sir Alastair Cook is unbeaten on 58, while big Billy Stanlake has the one wicket to fall but has been expensive, going at almost five an over. Nick Browne, the man out, scored 59, and Westley is at the crease with Cook.
Durham v Worcestershire: Durham scored 246 batting first and Worcestershire are 98-4 in response. Ben Raine has 2-11 and Chris Rushworth 2-38 for Durham and Tom Fell 40 not out for Worcs. Lees made 99 for Durham, with Brydon Carse second top scorer with 38 not out. Tongue claimed 5-39 for Worcs.
Sussex v Kent: Sussex are 177-4, already 32 ahead of Kent with six first innings wickets still standing. Tom Clark is 36 not out and Ben Brown 21 not out. Stiaan Van Zyl made 52. Darren Stevens who made his FC debut five years before Clark was even born, has 2-45 and Nathan Gilchrist 2-46.
Glamorgan v Yorkshire: Glamorgan are 96-7, play having started a day late due to the weather. Harry Brook, mainly a batter, has 3-15 with his medium pace, Steven Patterson 2-15 and Ben Coad and Jordan Thompson each have a wicket. David Lloyd made 31 and Billy Root 23. At the moment Michael Neser and Andrew Salter are batting for Glamorgan. Glamorgan’s other Aussie, Labuschagne, managed just 10. Glamorgan were 69-2 at one point before slumping to 82-7.
Middlesex v Hampshire: Middlesex are 163-9. This match saw one session of play yesterday and most of today’s scheduled play although there was an interruption for bad light. Gubbins made 51 for Middlesex, his fourth 50+ score of the season, while Blake Cullen scored 27. Kyle Abbott has 5-44 and Mohammad Abbas 3-42.
Somerset v Surrey: Surrey are 14-0 in the fifth over. There is no brother v brother element in this game as Craig Overton is not playing for Somerset. Leach is also rested, which means that Roelof van der Merwe is playing. Burns has 6 not out, Stoneman 7 not out. Gregory and Davey are bowling for Somerset, with De Lange first chance and Tom Abell possibly bowling ahead of van der Merwe in the circumstances. Craig Overton has been rested at the request of the ECB, which suggests that an England recall beckons for the Devonian giant.
#BBCCRICKET SELECTION GAME: PICK XI FOR 1ST TEST
The XI I picked is shown below (go here to try it yourself), and then I provide some supplementary notes:
You are given a list of options for each position, and some of the choices they provide are obviously flawed. My own selection is uncontroversial as regards the top seven – Woakes has to be an automatic pick in England, and absent Stokes who is recovering from injury, he is the only one fitted to play the role of genuine all rounder. I opted for Craig Overton at eight, because Oliver Edward Robinson was not available to be selected there, though Archer was. I could have picked Archer at eight and Robinson at nine and then explained that I would actually reverse their batting positions but decided to go for Overton instead and explain the situation in more detail. Overton is in magnificent form and I am not too worried about this personnel change. Archer bowled beautifully for Sussex yesterday and is clearly fit and firing, though Olly Stone could also be awarded that slot and the Durham duo of Mark Wood and Brydon Carse are also both possibles. Leach has to play if fit (if not Parkinson comes in), and I have gone for Anderson out of the veterans.
SOLUTION TO YESTERDAY’S MATHEMATICAL TEASER
Yesterday I presented the following:
The answer to the above is 18. I offer two of the published explanations, first a masterpiece of brevity from David Vreken:
By casting out the nines, (E+A+R)+(E+R+A)−(A+R+E)=A+R+E(E + A + R) + (E + R + A) – (A + R + E) = A + R + E(E+A+R)+(E+R+A)−(A+R+E)=A+R+E must be divisible by 999.
Out of the given options, only 181818 is divisible by 999, so A+R+E=18A + R + E = \boxed{18}A+R+E=18​.
For those who prefer a more thorough approach here is a complete explanation from Inesh Chattopadhyay:
PHOTOGRAPHS
Time for my usual sign off:
As I prepare to put this up, Surrey have moved on to 50-1, Stoneman back in the hutch, Burns in to the 20s, continuing his strong start to the season, and Amla just starting.
A look at such action as there has been in the county championship, a teaser, a few links and plenty of photographs.
There has not been much action in the county championship due to poor weather in various areas but I look at the little there has been.
GAMES NOT STARTED YET
Four of the six games have yet to see any action: Essex v Derbyshire, Yorkshire v Glamorgan, Middlesex v Hampshire and what should be the tie of the round, Somerset v Surrey.
Sussex v Kent did get underway but they have gone off for the light (inexcusable – find a ball of a colour that is easier to see under floodlights and keep playing). Kent are 74-3. Jofra Archer claimed two wickets in a fiery new ball burst and has subsequently bowled a second spell of four overs (his opening burst was also of four overs, suggesting that someone from England’s management has told Sussex to use him in short spells), while the third wicket, that of Jordan Cox, went to Oliver Edward Robinson who produced a corker of a ball that uprooted the youngster’s off stump. That brought Oliver Graham Robinson, the Kent keeper and middle order batter to the crease, but before there was time for a duel between the two almost homonymous cricketers the light intervened.
This means that the only game in progress is up at Chester-le-Street where Durham are 97-3 against Worcestershire. Bedingham, the South African born batter who has been scoring very heavily for Durham went for just 24 today, but Lees, the former Yorkshire left hander, is on 39 and Jack Burnham has 5. Charlie Morris has two wickets and Joe Leach one.
A MATHEMATICAL TEASER
This one from brilliant.org is not too difficult, though I am removing the multi-choice options, deeming them unneccessary. Solution/ explanation in my next post:
LINKS AND PHOTOGRAPHS
Three interesting links before my usual sign off:
This piece from the space academy details the discovery of the first planet to have been identified outside our galaxy. Click here to read the full piece.
Durham have moved on while I have been working on this post to 121-3, and Lees has reached 50, the 50th time in his FC career he has done as much, but he has only converted 17 of the previous 49 into 100s.
aspiblog 