Tag: Hampshire v Surrey

Nottinghamshire’s Grip on the County Championship Strengthens

A look at developments on day one of the final round of fixtures in the 2025 County Championship and a photo gallery.

Today is the opening day of the last round of matches in the 2025 county championship. Surrey are playing at Southampton against relegation threatened Hampshire (it has finally been confirmed with one match to play that they system will not be changing next year, so promotion and relegation will be happening), while Nottinghamshire are at home to Warwickshire. Nottinghamshire started the day needing 11 points from their match to make certain of the title (as I make clear in this post they should already be safe). This post looks at what has happened so far.

AT SOUTHAMPTON

Surrey won the toss, chose to bat and batted horribly. They lost wickets early, and never really stopped the rot, ending up all out for a miserable 147, 103 runs short of even a first batting bonus point, thereby reducing the ask for Nottinghamshire from 11 points to six. Hampshire’s reply to date has been a microcosm of their season with the bat – all of the top three got in, and all got out when seemingly well set. Only Ali Orr, who fell to a catch down the leg side by Foakes deserves even a hint of sympathy – both Nick Gubbins and Fletcha Middleton played poor shots, giving part time spinner Dan Lawrence their wickets. Surrey’s awful effort with the bat means that Hampshire are still in control, currently 120-3 in reply to that measly 147 by Surrey. Surrey, with a number of players unavailable by order of the ECB gave a first class debut to 17 year old Ralphie Albert, one of whose grandfathers, snooker legend Jimmy White, knew a thing or two about scores of 147. Ralphie Albert, apparently no relation of Hampshire’s Toby Albert, bats right handed and bowls left arm orthodox spin.

AT NOTTINGHAM

Nottinghamshire started well, and soon had their first bowling point on the board. At 127-5 it looked like a second was on the cards with Surrey missing out on any batting points. However, two all rounders, Ed Barnard and Dan Mousley have baulked Nottinghamshire since then, putting on an unbroken 83. Thus Nottinghamshire still need five more points to win, and the overs situation, seemingly totally irrelevant when the fifth wicket fell, is now just appearing on the horizon – Nottinghamshire have 39 overs left to get the four wickets that would give them a full haul of bowling points, which is still favourable to them, but means that it is not impossible that they will be denied. However whatever happens in the rest of the Warwickshire innings Nottinghamshire will go into bat with their destiny in their own hands, and a chance to settle it in that innings.

PHOTOGRAPHS

A malfunctioning memory card that could only be saved by reformatting it cost me a lot of pictures, but fortune favoured me thereafter and I do have a proper gallery to share…

I was passing through St Peter’s Garden outside the church of St Peter and St Paul, Fakenham when someone spotted the camera and kindly told me about a Peregrine Falcon that was currently eating a pigeon on the far side of the garden. This picture and the next two resulted.

Reaching Back to WG Grace Twice Over

A look back at two matches that in different ways link back to WG Grace and a very large photo gallery.

Today is the fourth and final day of a round of county championship matches. I am following Essex’s attempt to beat Kent, which at the moment seems to be going their way. Yesterday two matches saw events that in different ways harked back to WG Grace. This post looks at both matches, one of which I listened to and one of which I heard about.

HAMPSHIRE V SURREY

Surrey won the county championship in 2022 and 2023, and are well placed to make it three in a row this year. However, even the strongest sides occasionally get things badly wrong, and at Southampton over the three days that the match lasted Surrey most certainly did. Surrey won the toss and chose to bat. A poor morning with the bat for Surrey was immediately followed by a devastating post-lunch burst from Kyle Abbott which yielded him a five-for in next to no time, and Surrey had mustered a measly 127. By the close of day one Hampshire were 102-1, Fletcha Middleton gone for 35, and Toby Albert and Nick Gubbins looking solid though not scoring with any great pace. Both completed centuries on the second day, Albert’s being his maiden first class ton. With this solid base to build on the later batting was more aggressive, and by the end of day two Hampshire were 495-4, with Ben Brown 99* and Liam Dawson 74*. The only question by then was whether Surrey could save the match. Brown completed his hundred and went rapidly on to a career best 165*. Dawson was out for 81, while James Fuller helped Hampshire towards their declaration with 34* off 27 balls. Hampshire’s declaration came at 608-6, leaving Surrey just over five sessions to bat to save the game. Burns was out early, and a good catch by Albert off Organ removed Sibley for 28 (86). Thereafter only Foakes showed the necessary application to bat for a long time. Lawrence scored 42 off 50 balls, a most inappropriate innings for the circumstances, while Steel, Clark, Sean Abbott and Atkinson managed 21 between them. With the result settled Surrey number 11 Dan Worrall emerged as top scorer for them, hitting his way to 48, with his dismissal leaving Foakes undefeated on 19 having survived 107 balls. The margin was an innings and 278 runs, the worst defeat Surrey had ever suffered in a county championship match, though the 1948 Australians beat Surrey by an innings and 296, as did an England XI in 1866, the match in which WG Grace scored his maiden first class century, a then ground record 224*. Full scorecard here.

GLOUCESTERSHIRE V DERBYSHIRE

This match is a ridiculous run fest and will end in a draw. However when Gloucestershire were 131-4 in reply to Derbyshire’s 526 it might have got interesting. At that point James Bracey and Graeme van Buuren came together for Gloucestershire, and their fifth wicket stand ended up producing 277, an all time Gloucestershire record for that wicket, breaking one of the oldest county records, set by WG Grace and William Moberly in 1876 (Moberly was also an excellent rugby player, captaining Oxford University to victory in the first ever varsity rugby match and appearing for England against Scotland in 1872). In the run up to lunch today Gloucestershire had a clatter of wickets fall, but Aussie import Beau Webster smashed a rapid 76 to take them into a first innings lead – 530 against 526.

PHOTOGRAPHS

I have a large photo gallery to share. My next gallery will be a bit different as early tomorrow morning I head north for a brief holiday in Scotland, near Perth to be precise (a journey accomplished by means of fast bus to Peterborough and trains from Peterborough to Perth). Here is today’s offering…