Posted by The draw is an unloved thing. No-one sings songs about finishing level because you’ve run out of time. You don’t get impassioned speeches of the oeuvre, ‘maybe it’ll rain this afternoon and we’ll get away with this one’. But draws are still important – some years more than others.
Back in April we wondered whether this could be the year someone got close to Warwickshire’s breathtaking 2004 feat of winning the County Championship with just five wins from 16 matches. That kind of a thing is still very much on, you know.
With two games to go, Surrey are one point ahead of Nottinghamshire with just four wins to their name. Excitingly, the two counties play each other this week. The odds are on a draw.
That’s more to do with Surrey than it is with Notts. Trawling through this season’s stats this morning, the main thing that struck us was the contrast in bowling returns.
Nottinghamshire have six bowlers who’ve taken more than 20 wickets this season – Surrey just two. It’s not like those two are roaring away accounting for every opposition batter either. Dan Worrall has taken 28 wickets and Jordan Clark has taken 31.
> Surrey’s Dan Worrall maybe should have become “English” before he was in his 30s
Those are good but not incredible numbers. Fergus O’Neill has taken 21 for Nottinghamshire and he left the country in April.
In recent years, we’ve frequently described Surrey’s approach as Borg-like with a huge cast of players subbing in and out of the first team, sharing the work. But this isn’t really a case of the wickets being spread around more. Surrey’s bowlers have taken 156 wickets; Notts’ have taken 186.
To put that in context, bottom placed Worcestershire’s bowlers have also taken 186. Most counties’ bowlers have managed 170-odd. The bowlers from almost-as-drawsome Essex (seven draws to Surrey’s eight) have taken 190 wickets. (These figures don’t include run-outs, by the way, but we don’t think that matters. If Surrey had executed 30-40 run-outs this season, we’re pretty sure we’d have heard about it.)
It’s not even like Surrey are batting the opposition into oblivion, as far as we can make out. To revert to the top-of-the-table head-to-head comparison, they’ve collectively scored 10 hundreds and 39 fifties versus 14 hundreds and 31 fifties by Notts’ players.
Surrey v Nottinghamshire is now underway. Brace yourself for lots of 40-odds and a fair number of rain delays.
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It looks like one of the top two will win the league due to every other match being rained off.
Isn’t this the case that all the other teams have put our roads when Surrey have come to town?
Not really. Four draws at home, four away. Their 820-9 was at the Oval.
In the entire County Championship, only Leicestershire have won half their games (so far). Notts are the most ‘winsome’ county in the first division, with 5 wins out of 12. Warwickshire have managed 3 wins so far.
Maybe many of these draws were nail-biters, but, much as I appreciate the comfort blanket aspect of county cricket, it sounds like the matches have become a little… boring?
Four rounds of matches with the Kookaburra ball didn’t help, but the whole point of that is it puts the onus on the counties to find a way of taking wickets. Doesn’t seem like much progress is being made. A lot of them just whinge about it.
There have been a couple of draws at the Oval when the pitch eased enough on days three and four to frustrate Surrey’s strategy of batting second. You can argue the bowlers were not good enough those times. Then there was the Infamous Kookaburra match when nobody could take any wickets. Last week’s match against Warwickshire was going to plan, but too much time was lost to rain.
Three away draws were in the early season, when the hosts prepared pitches designed to frustrate the taking of 20 wickets by either side; a sound approach if you know that a result wicket will get you no win points, but a draw will be well rewarded.
The scoring system and the odious Kookaburra structurally encourage draws. Both are bad ideas. The notion that making counties play with the Kookaburra will develop result-achieving skills is fatuous. Giving them the possibility of achieving 15 points for a draw is the definition of a perverse incentive. The makers of these decisions, rather, than Surrey, would be the culprits if Surrey manage to retain the Championship with only 4 wins.
We’d argue Surrey rarely pick a team equipped for the easing of a pitch – although they’re far from alone in that. We would however agree they wouldn’t be “the culprits” if they do become champions with just four wins. You couldn’t really consciously set out to achieve such a thing, could you?
New format fore points would improve matters
With sides looking fore wins 3 points fore a win 1 fore a draw nothing fore defeat with the current bonus points system used as a type of goal difference to decide sides level on points the positions in both divisions hardly change but surely sides would push more fore victories
Applying Betteridge’s Law of Headlines, the answer to the question, “ Are Surrey going to win the County Championship without hitting hundreds, taking wickets or winning games?” must be no.
Thank you, KC, for betteridging Surrey’s chances. Come on you Outlaws.
Interesting discussion. Even more interesting, an actual result looks likely at the top of the table (or ‘at the Oval’ of you prefer).
And even more interesting than that, man of the moment, Notts’ Lyndon James, has achieved perfect balance as an all rounder: his first class batting and bowling averages are exactly equal, both 35.46. for how long can he maintain this?
Turning into a cracker of a final day… I’ve always said how exciting these county championship matches are!
We all hate Surrey, we all hate Surrey, we are the Surrey haters, we all hate Surrey.
Haters gonna hate… Notts gonna win the title!