Posted by County 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 it come to this? Lancashire’s 2024 performance was so poor, even Lanky’s been stripped of a little of his dignity.
Just a little, mind. Giraffes are proud animals. They tend to hold their heads high.
The truth is, this is not unheard of. It is, in fact, Lancashire’s fourth relegation from the top flight since they last won the Championship in 2011. They also went down in 2012, 2014 and 2018. On each occasion, they were clinically fed up, only to immediately bounce back. People bounce back: Dennis Hopper, Alan Partridge – there are others.
Will that happen again? Who can say? They’ve been woefully short of run-scorers this season, for various reasons. (We forgot to mention Liam Livingstone in that article, a surprisingly decent first-class batter who hasn’t played first-class cricket for Lancashire since 2021.) The second division is easier though. That’s kind of the point.
They can also fudge the batting a bit by using all-rounders to open up extra spaces. Luke Wells topped the bowling averages among those players who turned out more than once while also chipping in a couple of hundreds. Then there’s George Balderson, who was top wicket-taker this year. Bowling seems to be his main thing these days, but he’s a 23-year-old with first-class hundreds to his name, so pretty handy to have about the place.
Balderson also sounds like a future nickname for the county’s greatest bowler. Surely Jimmy won’t press on until it’s applicable?
Will he?
Sign up for our email if you fancy boldly (or reluctantly) careering into the future with us. Time waits for no-one, not even Lanky.
With all the recent controversy over bat sizes, surely the inspectors need to turn their attention to Lanky and his mates. More points deductions could be imminent.
He’s a giraffe, not a bat. You can tell because he’s never proven himself capable of sustained flight.
The inspectors find it quite easy to get confessions out of those who wield oversized willow blades though, Sam. The perpetrators tend to be pretty unwilling to deceive.
What I’m saying is, they like big bats and they cannot lie.
At least we might get a little more Division Two reportage in 2025, eh, KC? Division Two’s importance in the grander scheme of things increases by an order of magnitude when Lancashire are in it.
You can multiply ‘wholly unimportant’ as many times as you like, you’ll still end up with nothing.