3 minute readAll eyes on the Ambassador Cruise Line Ground from tomorrow. Is this funnier or less funny than the previous sponsorship which made it sound like Essex’s nickname was Cloud County? Overseas professionalism is a jaunty, unpredictable thing in the current County Championship era. Remember last year when Surrey went down
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2 minute readAh, the County Championship, bastion of egalitarian sporting competition, where every county plays every other county home and away… except for four of them. An important thing to look at when previewing the County Championship is which matches won’t actually happen. Ten first division teams, each playing 14 matches –
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2 minute readEvery year, 10 to 20 bowlers take 40 wickets or more in the first division of the County Championship and every year, three or four of them are the exact same Hampshire players. This cannot go on. This will not go on. In 2021, in his first year with Hampshire,
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3 minute readThe County Championship has got a new sponsor. It’s Rothesay. Even if you have no idea who Rothesay are, you can probably make a pretty decent ballpark guess. When the ECB seek sponsorship for a domestic cricket competition, they typically end up mining quite a narrow seam. In no particular
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7 minute readHundreds of millions of pounds are being spent on 49% stakes in tinpot teams that play a niche format of cricket watched by hardly anyone in the host country. Everyone seems to have an opinion on this, but if there’s one group of people we’d like to hear from, it’s
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2 minute readCounty Championship first division status is crossing the Pennines from Lancashire to Yorkshire and has now made it to, ooh, let’s say Todmorden. It just passed second division status going the other way. (What we’re saying here is that Lancashire have been relegated and Yorkshire have been promoted.) How did
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2 minute readAnderson, Flintoff – it’s a strong looking Lancashire team sheet this week. Pity they couldn’t dig out a Chapple or a Fairbrother or a Wasim Akram. It’s always been reassuring for Lancashire supporters to see Anderson on the team sheet. The club therefore went out and found one. With the
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5 minute readLancashire are 15 points behind Nottinghamshire and 20 points behind Warwickshire going into the last round of matches. Those two teams will play each other and a draw plus a couple of bonus points for Notts would be enough to save both. That would be true even if Lancashire were
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2 minute readAs Somerset showed last week, there are ways to beat Surrey. But if you can’t muster the same quality of spin bowling and you aren’t in charge of the pitch, what are your options? This week at the Oval, Durham tried something different. Durham tried reversing into their second innings,
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2 minute readIf you’re in charge of a county cricket club and you want to deliver on-field success, the last thing you want to do is produce England players. If you want to do well in the County Championship, your goal should be to develop (or hire) as many Not-Quite-England-Players as you
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