County cricket

County cricket – let’s at least try and stay on top of things for a bit

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Mark Davies plays for Kent now but still looks like a Viking

Following county cricket is not easy. Sooner or later it’ll get away from you and you won’t have a clue what’s going on.

It might happen when all your attention is on a Test match or it might happen when they squeeze in two rounds of the County Championship while you thought they were playing a completely different competition, but one way or another you’ll lose the thread at some point.

Here at King Cricket, we’re sort of going to try and make half an effort to have a vague idea what’s going on in the early part of the season before surrendering at some point during May. To be honest, we’ve pretty much failed already because the first couple of weeks snuck in before we’d managed to accept that it was no longer winter.

Here’s the gist.

County Championship Division One

Nottinghamshire are top. Nottinghamshire are always strong. This is partly down to Chris Read, but it’s mostly down to Andre Adams who takes buckets of wickets for nowt and often hits fifties as well.

Like Lancashire, Nottinghamshire have always tended to rely on the batsmen at seven, eight and nine for the bulk of their runs. They may now have addressed this a little by adding Michael Lumb to their team. He has already hit a hundred. They’ve got James Taylor as well, who promises a lot but still needs to convince us.

Their bowling looks worse though. Will they win the Championship? Dunno, but they’re ahead.

County Championship Division Two

We can’t really see anyone other than Kent and Yorkshire getting promoted. Yorkshire are much the same and have plenty of decent players. Kent have brought in about half a team.

Most significantly, they’ve got Mark Davies and Charlie Shreck – murderous scythes who simply detest the corn of second division batting line-ups. Being as there hasn’t yet been an innings in which Davies has bowled a suspiciously small and irregular number of overs (usually 3.2) we’re assuming he’s still fit as well, which is, frankly, a bonus.

Kent have also got Ben Harmison, who we think is pretty damn handy and Brendan Nash, the Aussie West Indian, who should be good for a 244-ball 62 pretty much every match.

DON'T BE LIKE GATT!

Mike Gatting wasn't receiving the King Cricket email when he dropped that ludicrously easy chance against India in 1993.

Coincidence?

Why risk it when it's so easy to sign up?

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32 comments

  1. Mark Davies.

    Older readers will remember that he is Bert Jr’s favourite player. Given the number of times he’s been “One to Watch”, I think we can safely say he’s one of KC’s faves as well. And as I seem to recall from previous death threats, SixSixEight has a thing for him as well.

    I do hope that this move away from his northern groupies to the tender fold of Sarah’s loving arms won’t cause any friction here. However, just in case, I will continue to watch this website in meticulous detail.

    1. That’s the spirit. Try resting something on your F5 key in order to continually refresh the page.

    2. Fortunately Bert, Sarah’s loving arms are full of whizzo cameras and equipment, so Sixsixeight can breathe easily (and the King can have snazzy snaps to illustrate his articles)

    3. Fortunately Bert, Sarah’s loving arms are full of whizzo cameras and equipment, so Sixsixeight can breathe easily (and the King can have snazzy snaps to illustrate his articles)

    5. You use the F5 key to refresh your webpage? Oh, you must also have a notebook to jot down your appointments, yes?

    6. Are you implying that you use a telephone?

      Why would we have an appointment, anyway?

  2. I thought Kent were skint? Has some wealthy benefactor come in over the winter to provide funds? Or is Bob Key making packed lunches for himself AND Darren Stevens this season in an attempt to further reduce the catering budget?

    Seriously, how did they suddenly find themselves able to afford this array of talent? And Brendon Nash.

    1. I believe the buzz phrase being bandied around is “money ball signings”, String.

      I’ve already promised 668 that I will take good care of Mr Davies. My unselfishness extends to Shreck, Powell, Harmy Junior, Nash etc etc. All heart, me.

    2. We thought the whole Moneyball thing was about finding players who were undervalued. If county cricket is undervaluing those players, it’s pretty dense.

      That’s precisely what’s happened, isn’t it?

    3. Just imagine the revenue you could generate from Robert Key themed packed lunches! I realise that the outlay-per-lunch would be high, but there must be hundreds of football teams, small businesses, schools and county councils who would solve all their catering problems in one go by buying one.

    4. Couldn’t agree more, KC. The Clubs who considered our new chaps surplus to their requirements may well be kicking themselves right now. Imagine Glamorgan would kill at the moment for someone to replicate Powell’s knock last week of 128*.

      *smiles*

    5. I think at the moment Glamorgan would kill to have a team capable of getting to 128* between them.

      In all fairness, they have managed it once. Against Leicestershire. In defeat.

  3. How would one theme a Robert Key Packed Lunch (or RKPL Lunch)? Perhaps taking all the usual picnic ingredients, wrapping them in filo pastry and putting in the oven for 40 mins?
    Too obvious? Probably.

    3. When I were a lad, packed lunches had a very definite, never-to-be-deviated from formula. One sandwich, sliced white bread , single ingredient (ham, cheese etc.); one piece of fruit; one packet of Golden Wonder Crisps; one small chocolate biscuit of type bought in 5 or 6 packs (e.g. club, penguin, trio etc.)

      Would a Key lunch simply vary in scale, perhaps also with a picture of the Kent stalwart and England double centurian in place of BA Barachus on the box?

    4. It would definitely feature our latest supermarket discovery: “ham trim”.

      It’s basically the last bits of ham joints they can’t turn into beautiful looking slices. They come in a pot luck pack where you get a mix of different hams (smoked, honey roast etc) all lumped in together.

      We imagine this is how other people feel about boxes of chocolates.

    5. Ham trim – what a snack! All the benefits of bite sizedness with the added bonus of being ham. Perfect.

      Deep Cower: I’ve not seen that Epic Mealtime. I did once watch an erstwhile flatmate of mine (sometime poster, Price) eat a 9-egg omelette. It was an astonishing construction, but played havoc with his digestion, much to my displeasure.

  4. KC spent two and a half paragraphs talking about Kent without once mentioning His Robness. I don’t even know what blog I’m reading any more.

  5. More words on Division Two than Division One, KC.

    Are your standards slipping?

    Or are you preparing for a massive back=pedal on the Div 1 and Div 2 thing, just in case the throdkin-eaters get relegated this season?

    1. No, we’ve basically summed up Division Two for the season with those two paragraphs. You’re unlikely to hear much more about it now.

  6. I agree that we should all try to pay more attention to the LV = County Championship.

    What the shit is that about?

  7. If it’s not wily and awesome veterans, it is future cricket legends. That is what Kent have in abundance. It is cruel of them to have raised hopes like this so early in the season but I do appear to have fallen for it.

    And Kent are largely skint, but I believe we have somewhat whored ourselves and put a Sainsbury’s somewhere about the ground, though no doubt Ms Canterbury will be a bit more up to speed than I am.

  8. What’s this? Has the domestic cricket season started? I’ve been waiting for it watching an interesting circus with blokes dressed in silver and yellow over in India. The dancing girls are great but I am yet to see an Elelphant bowl seam up. I am amazed at how much significance the commentators can squeeze out of every delivery (there are only 120 of them in each innings, of course). I think it’s cricket bu I’mnot sure. It’s called IPL. Is that a new computer corporation from Bangalore? PS Can Rob Key ensure the inclusion of an asian snack in the lunch; a samosa perhaps? They are all the rage at half time in the IPL, I’m sure. PPS Love the article KC and am mildy ashamed that I have resorted to such a sarcastic post. But it had to be said.

  9. Awww how thoughtful a Mark Davies post on my Birthday.

    Sorry Bert, peaceful coexistence is the rule of the day when the Viking is bowling. Joined Sarah, to see him with his new team down at Beckenham in those long distant days of summer [March!].

    “Can you eat capybara meat?” Yes, in some parts of South America it is very popular, apparently.

  10. That Yorkshire prediction is currently panning out well.

    Hopefully Kent will also soon follow suit.

    Although the fact that numpties like Northeast can’t get in the team would tend to suggest otherwise.

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