Key events
A few early images from the Saturday’s play:
In case you missed it yesterday
Scores on the doors
DIVISION ONE
Canterbury: Kent v Essex 289-1
Lord’s: Middlesex 111-1 v Nottinghamshire 364
The County Ground: Northamptonshire 95-5 v Hampshire 482-8dec
Taunton: Somerset 441 all out v Lancashire 302-1
DIVISION TWO
Sophia Gardens: Glamorgan v Durham 382-6 no play Friday.
Hove: Sussex 361 v Yorkshire 216-7
New Road: Worcestershire 118-7 v Gloucestershire 231 no play Friday.
Friday’s round-up
Lancashire took the game at Taunton by the collar and gave it a good shaking. James Anderson kept on rolling, picking up another five-wicket haul, his 54th in first-class cricket, while a beefed up Saqib Mahmood collected his first wicket since he was ruled out with a stress fracture last summer. Somerset’s Tom Abell passed 150 for the first time, Jack Leach galloped to a happy-go-lucky 40 not out. Luke Wells teed off a Bazballing Lancashire reply and Keaton Jennings reached his first century as Lancashire captain.
Ethan Bamber, with four for 89, was the pick of the Middlesex bowlers as Ben Duckett muscled 177 for Nottinghamshire. The Middlesex openers reached fifty before being parted.
Hampshire’s James Vince lorded 186. Mohammad Abbas then trapped Northants’ Ricardo Vasconcelos with the first ball of the innings, and they later suffered a further crumple, losing three further wickets for one run. A final wicket for Abbas before stumps left the hosts in a hole.
At Canterbury, Nick Browne and Tom Westley reached centuries for Essex as the Kent bowling continued to suffer on a rain-affected day.
At Hove, Ollie Robinson made his first Championship appearance of the year. In he cantered and quickly had Yorkshire’s Finlay Bean dropped twice at leg slip. But the pick of the bowlers was Jack Carson, who grabbed three wickets with the close in touching distance. Earlier, Sussex’s last wicket pair of Carson and Henry Crocombe had irked Yorkshire with a partnership of 57.
At New Road and Sophia Gardens, they pulled the plug early.
Preamble
Good morning! It’s day three, round three, and after rain hovered about yesterday, sticking its nose in here and there and wiping out any action at New Road or Sophia Gardens, the forecast is better – heavy rain moving rapidly northwards, mere scattered showers dancing around the south.
Northants and Yorkshire (promotion favourites anyone?) are looking in a sticky place; while Lancashire, powered by a Keaton Jennings hundred and a half century from Josh Bohannon, dance away from Somerset. I’m heading to Lord’s , where Middlesex’s top order found their ballast at last, and three games need good weather for the chance of a result – at Canterbury, Sophia Gardens and New Road.
Apologies in advance, as I’m going to be largely absent from the morning session, trying to track down the Extinction Rebellion Cricket Club playing cricket to save the world somewhere in Hyde Park. If you’re there too, come and say hello. And if not, do keep yourselves company BTL.
