Early yesterday evening Oliver Price claimed the final Derbyshire wicket to give his side victory by 213 runs with 6.3 overs left to be bowled. That brought an end to the latest round of championship fixtures. This post looks back at the main events of yesterday (see here for details of the two matches that ended on Friday).
KENT v WORCESTERSHIRE
This match was threatening to get interesting win the visitors needed just over 100 with five wickets left, and Brett D’Oliveira closing in on three figures. While not being anywhere close to the standards of his grandfather Basil this D’Oliveira is a solid county batter, and given proper support by the later Worcestershire batters he could have made it very tense indeed. In the end Kent had 84 runs to spare, and D’Oliveira was left stranded with a century to his name.
GLOUCESTERSHIRE v DERBYSHIRE
The county of my birth have been having a rotten season in the county championship, coming into this round with only one win to their name. It did not look like changing when they batted on and on in their second innings against Derbyshire, finally declaring to set the visitors 318 in 45 overs. Batting out for the draw should have been straightforward, but Derbyshire had a horrible collapse at the start of the innings, plunging to 41-6. The only batter of substance left was Martin Andersson, who dug in grittily. The fact that it took 24 overs for the last four wickets to fall underlines how atrociously the early Derbyshire batting failed, with six of them falling in the first 14.4 overs of the innings.
NORTHAMPTONSHIRE HOIST ON OWN PETARD
Northamptonshire might have thought they were doing OK when they needed 205 to win the fourth innings. However their own pitch preparation came back to bite them. They had prepared a spinning surface hoping for their bowlers to benefit, but it was Durham left arm spinner Callum Parkinson who reaped the rewards, with six cheap wickets are Northamptonshire crashed for 50 in the final innings.
THE STALEST OF STALEMATES
A combination of a flawed points system (on which I have animadverted before) and lack of enterprise by both counties consigned Nottinghamshire v Leicestershire to an early grave, awaiting only the formality of handshakes at the first legal opportunity. Once Leicestershire had avoided the possibility of being made to follow on, partly with the assistance of Josh Davey, who also helped his former county Somerset in the process neither side showed any interest in making a game of things. Leicestershire could have challenged Nottinghamshire by declaring as soon as the follow-on was avoided, effectively daring them to set a target if they were game. Nottinghamshire once they finally got the elusive wicket could have decided: OK, we still have a decent lead, and we are going to throw the bat for 20 overs and see where we end up, and if Leicestershire fancy attempting the chase good luck to them. In the event as indicated Leicestershire batted on until that last wicket fell, and Nottinghamshire showed no interest in anything other than a polishing up of batting averages. This is precisely the sort of event that underlines the folly of assessing a draw as worth half as much of a win. One result of this is that Somerset sit on top of the table, four points ahead of Nottinghamshire.
PHOTOGRAPHS
My usual sign off…
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