Posted by Does this make it the most resultsive week yet? Is this as much winnery and lossery as we’ve had? Has the staggering impact on the County Championship table bespoilt our internal dictionary?
Middlesex beat Yorkshire
This was the big result. Middlesex’s wise decision to finally play a match outside the South-East led to only their second non-draw of the season. Even better for them, they were the non-losers.
A Gary Ballance hundred for Yorkshire was matched by one from South African vessel, the SS Eskinazi, while James Franklin made 99. You rather suspect that Franklin got out deliberately because he still clings to the belief that he’s primarily a bowler.
After that came the important stuff as Yorkshire were bowled out for just 167 in their second innings. Who did the damage? Everyone. Tim Murtagh, Steven Finn, Toblerone Jones and Ollie Rayner shared the ten wickets out as evenly as could be expected considering there were four of them.
Middlesex are now top of the table, having won one game more than Hampshire, who are bottom.
Warwickshire beat Surrey
After Surrey’s bizarre and unprecedented decision to win a match last week, this was infinitely more reassuring. In fact it was such a normal result that Warwickshire’s success was built on a Jonathan Trott hundred, ten wickets for Jeetan Patel and a fifty for Ian Bell which had promised much more.
Lancashire drew with Nottinghamshire
Which means they’re second. Haseeb Hameed – who is just desperate for people to get his name wrong somehow – made another hundred, while pretty much every single Nottinghamshire player made between 40 and 70 runs.
The Great Neil Wagner put a proper shift in.
Durham drew with Hampshire
Another Keaton Jennings hundred, plus some other stuff.
Why haven’t you put the table in?
Quite honestly? We couldn’t be bothered.
Yeah right. You could be bothered last time around when Lancs. were top, eh? EH?
Also is it true that TGNW is leaving Lancashire soon? I look forward to being told each week of the CC how he’s not playing.
Or to put the first paragraph more poetically:
The King
Is pretending
He is unable
To be bothered to include the table.
By perceiving bias, you sorely underestimate the sheer depths of our laziness.
Maybe the Lancashire-Middlesex thing was some sort of tipping point. We don’t know. We can’t be bothered scrutinising our motives.
Looks like the England selectors haven’t been reading the papers recently, with call-ups for none of the players being touted the media (Borthwick, Buttler, Stokes), instead putting their faith in the players nobody was talking about (TRJ and Ballance).
What. The. Balls.
Root
Should not get the boot
From four
Where the most runs he does score.
All comments now to be in the form of clerihews, by Royal decree.
Fiiiine… Ahem.
Gaz Baz
Has
Some talent, but is out of form.
Strike while the iron’s hot, not lukewarm.
Toby Roland-Jones
Did help flatten Yorkshire, like rolling stones,
But isn’t he lacking in pace?
Then again, Lord’s is his home place…
Scott Borthwick
Must be absolutely parrot-sick,
But there’s another England-qualified batsman looking forward more to death.
James Hildreth.
Buttler, Jos
Though his ODI batting ain’t dross
And despite many firm calls for his test inclusion, and a few somewhat more leftfield for Livingstone and Gubbins, they have no more first-class tons to their names
Than Tredwell, James*
* Correct at time of going to press.
Jake Ball,
Has (for England) done the square root of f-all;
But his elbow is apparently in disarray,
Presumably as a result of having to carry the drinks tray.
James Whitaker
Made choices that some may be a bitaker
-imonious towards, here on King Cricket.
But when it comes to the team, don’t ask us to picket.
Angus Fraser,
Went in, selectorially, like a laser;
Picking for England this week two of the best that showed,
At Scarborough’s North Marine Road.
Jimmy Anderson
Expelled too much effort, it seems, and is on
The treatment table for a dodgy shoulder
We must expect these sorts of things to occur now he’s older
An opportunity arose.
In the English middle-order, as it goes.
But guided by fools like Whitaker, was Bayliss.
So he didn’t recall the Sledgehammer of Eternal Justice.
Daneel,
I rather feel;
Should elucidate in prose his evocative cricketing aesthetics,
Rather than attempt poetics.
For the drinks to carry
Feel free to pick Gary.
But in the XI, to choose Bell
Would be swell.