Tag: Lancashire

Side By Side

Some musings on the county championship (cricket), and an acknowledgement of King’s Lynn’s latest effort to advertise its heritage.

INTRODUCTION

I am posting about two unrelated matters, hence the title, which is borrowed from a series of Bridge Magazine articles written many years ago by Terence Reese. The firs topic of the day is…

CRICKET

As another English season draws to a close there are two topics to cover in this section, first of all…

A THREE WAY TUSSLE FOR THE COUNTY CHAMPIONSHIP

Thanks to Somerset continuing their late charge with a 10 wicket victory over Yorkshire, and Lancashire earning a draw against leaders Middlesex the final round of games will commence with Middlesex, Somerset and Yorkshire in that order all in contention for the title. Owing to the fact that a decision to alter the structure of the two divisions has meant that there is only one promotion place up for grabs the second division is now settled, with Essex having secured the promotion.

In the final round of matches Middlesex will play Yorkshire at Lord’s, while Somerset face already relegated Nottinghamshire. While my chief emotion as a cricket fan is gratitude that the championship race is going down to the wire, I cannot claim complete impartiality – despite having grown up in London and possessing a Yorkshire surname, it is my support for the underdog that wins out in this contest – I will be rooting for Somerset. Somerset have never won the championship (Northamptonshire and Gloucestershire are also in this position, although the latter were named as champion county three times in the 1870s, before the official start of the county championship in 1890). Apart from being a historic first, a championship win for Somerset this year would also be a fitting reward for Marcus Trescothick as he approaches the end of a long and distinguished career with the county.

The change in the structure of the two divisions mentioned earlier, moving from nine teams in each to eight in first and ten in the second, is not the most significant one happening in English domestic cricket, that distinction going to…

THE INTRODUCTION OF CITY FRANCHISES

Yes, it has been decided by a vote of 16-3 in favour to augment the existing domestic T20 competition with an eight-team city based competition. I am not going to say either yea or nay at this stage, waiting to see how it works in practice before making a judgement. I mark the break between this section and the second section of the post with some recent photographs from King’s Lynn…

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This is the uncropped version of a butterfly picture
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And this is the cropped version.

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A CODA TO HERITAGE OPEN DAY

Beales Department Store which is near thus bus station in King’s Lynn has recently closed down. Rather than leave the frontage as blank windows, it has been used as an opportunity to advertise our town’s heritage, as shown below…

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Save for the planning notice at the end, these pictures are presented in the order in which they were taken.

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A mixed bag

Once a very absorbing days play had ended between Lancashire and Middlesex I decided to go out for a walk and enhanced my photo collection. The two sides are scrapping to avoid relegation to the second division of the county championship, and with two days to go Middlesex are heavy favourites to do so. This is because owing to the bonus point system (5 batting and 3 bowling points available in the first 110 overs of each first innings) and their standings prior to the match starting, mere victory is not good enough for Lancashire, they also need to outscore Middlesex on bonus points. With six wickets currently down and some 40 runs needed to reach the next batting bonus point mark, Lancashires sole hope is to reach 300 for the loss of no more than two further wickets (a third, being the ninth in total would give Middlesex full bowling points and thereby condemn Lancashire) and then declare and bowl Middlesex out cheaply enough to have a manageable fourth innings run chase. I resume this having had to break off for a days work, and a check of www.cricinfo.com tells me that Lancashire did reach the magic 300 only 8 down and declared, so the relegation battle is still live. The final day tomorrow could see some fireworks as Lancashire have to go all out for whatever target they are left when they bowl Middlesex out, since a draw for them would be just as bad as a loss.

Some big news from work: the BBC have picked up on the Olympic medal story. The full story can be viewed at http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-norfolk-29360899 and I have of course already mentioned it on our own facebook and twitter accounts.

As usual I have plenty of photos for you to enjoy…

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The Great Ouse at night
The Great Ouse at night

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