English County Cricket Season 2014

(15-04-2014 11:22 )Billy_Nomates Wrote:  England test captain Alastair Cook and Ian Bell, and Test hopeful Sam Robson all score unbeaten hundreds for their counties. These days, of course, it's very rare for the England central contract players to play for their respective counties.

That's true, but after what happened in the winter England players need some batting practice.

Very true Straw Man. I think the problem is though that the standard of bowling, well at least from what I have seen, is not up to much in county cricket these days. Good to see that Finn has taken a few wickets though.

(17-04-2014 09:39 )straw man Wrote:  That's true, but after what happened in the winter England players need some batting practice.

Yes, they can get plenty of batting practice on docile shirt-fronts against dibbly-dobbly bowling.

(16-04-2014 17:00 )Billy_Nomates Wrote:  LV CC Division One, Taunton. Somerset 553 drew with Yorkshire 450 & 193-4d. Yorkshire 11pts; Somerset 9pts.

980 runs scored in three innings while only 19 wickets fell. Sounds like a shirt-front at Taunton. Not sure if those type of pitches produce quality batsmen?

What it will do is find bowlers capable of taking wickets at Test match level.
Generally speaking Test Match wickets are better batting surfaces that you would find in County Cricket with more time for preparation & not re-used over the course of a season.

Taunton has been one if not the best batting wickets on the County circuit for years.The groundsman left some grass on to help the bowlers but the sun shone for 4 days.Somerset's batsmen had a nightmare season & the wicket has given all their batsmen apart from Tres,much needed confidence.They are happy with this result as they only just escaped relegation last year.Yorkshire have the better pace attack out of the 2 sides & the pitch managed to blunt it.

I wouldn't describe Plunkett as dibbly-dobbly,he's up around 90 mph & has had a number of batsmen look uncomfortable with his pace this year.

The 553 posted by Somerset was the 5th highest total in Championship history not to include a century maker.

Sad to hear that Jonathan Trott is to have an extended break from cricket after a recurrence of the problem that forced him to leave the Ashes Tour.

^ Indeed that is sad to hear. I certainly wish him well and hope that he will be at least back playing for Warwickshire in the future although these things tend to take time.

(17-04-2014 22:23 )Boomerangutangangbang Wrote:  Sad to hear that Jonathan Trott is to have an extended break from cricket after a recurrence of the problem that forced him to leave the Ashes Tour.

I would be very surprised if he played for England again.

CC Div 1 Day 1
Yorkshire V Northamptonshire
Yorkshire won the toss & elected to bat

Yorkshire closed on 328-7 Ballance 117 not out Lees 90 Hall 3-73
Ballance & Lees added 156 for the 4th wicket after being 57-3

Other Div 1. scores
Chester Le Street Durham 308; Somerset 7/0 (6 ov) Jennings 80 Gregory 4-59
Manchester Lancashire 247; Warwickshire 63/0 (19 ov) Horton 83 Woakes 5-63

Div 2
Derby Hampshire 231/5 (80.3 ov) Will Smith 70
Cardiff Glamorgan 47/6 (19.4 ov) Payne 3-14

No play rain at The Oval Surrey v Essex and Canterbury Kent v Leics.

I see Chris Woakes is back in amongst the wickets again. He's always been on the periphery of the England test side. Although in his only test appearance last year against Australia he took 1-96.