County cricket: who cares for records when almost every match is a draw?

The Guardian

2 days ago

Surrey nudged one point above Nottinghamshire at the top of Division One after they could only draw with Durham. There were five matches played in the latest Kookaborra round of matches and four were drawn.
OK, you do need to bat well to score 305, as Dom Sibley did, or to declare on 820 for nine, as Surrey did, but the champions fell 10 (yes, 10) wickets short of their objective. So Rory Burns' strategy was, at best, suboptimal. Which raises the question: do such absurd scores in the first innings of a match reach and pass a tipping point where a draw becomes more likely than a win? I can't quite rationalise it, but it feels like it's not just leaving time to bowl out the opposition twice that counts, but leaving them a sliver of hope that the match is still alive.
Perhaps the most damning judgment on the whole debacle of using a ball wholly ill-suited to promoting balanced, attacking cricket was offered by the radio commentary team at the Oval, who could barely conceal their contempt for whatever it was that this version of first class cricket had become.
Congratulations to Durham, and especially Alex Lees with two centuries, but if so varied and skilled an attack as the champions' concede 362 and 262 for none, and cricket fanatics on the mic are tearing their hair out, it's time to send the ball 10,000 miles home. Or into space.
Nottinghamshire also drew having come no closer to the win than Surrey, but they secured three fewer bonus points in doing so and slipped into second as a consequence. If someone had told me a decade ago that I would be writing about draws, record scores and bonus points, I might never have started this column.
To be fair, Notts had a tougher ride than the Londoners, finding themselves three down and still 236 runs in arrears of Somerset's first innings. Cue centuries from Ben Slater and Jack Haynes, and handy contributions from Ishan Kishan and Lyndon James. But once a dashing Tom Kohler-Cadmore and a circumspect Tom Abell came together to bat out the match's last 40 overs, the draw was inevitable.
Could Notts have done more to force a win because they will need them to overhaul Surrey, who know how to manage a run-in? Probably not, the match 'enjoying' three innings, all progressing at a tad above three an over. If the experiment really is intended to allow English seamers to develop the skills required to take wickets overseas, I'm not sure the 95 overs delivered by bowlers answering that description (for four wickets), nor Jack Leach's 53.2–7–121–6 helped at all.
It's not often that you get two double centurions in one innings, but Worcestershire captain Jake Libby (228 in well over 10 hours) and Adam Hose (266 in well under six) did so against Hampshire. But, following on, the old hands, Ben Brown and Liam Dawson, batted for three hours to see out the draw.
Evidence perhaps that the tipping point for a first innings is not Surrey's 820 or Worcestershire's 679, but something quicker and lower? So, in four-day cricket, do you ever need more than 500 batting first? Instinctively, I doubt it. And if you pull out at that score as a rule, you're not going to lose too many are you?
The result that bucked the trend came at York, where Essex, having started well, fell off a cliff in response to Matthew Revis and Ben Coad racking up 169 runs for the home side's ninth wicket, demolishing the visitors' fragile confidence. Revis's 150 and Coad's 89 represented career highs, the all-rounder and the bowler completely upending the match with bats in hand.
But, as the previous points attest, scores were one thing, wickets quite another and Jack White and Coad shared 12 in the match, the opening bowlers ably supported by the back-up seam and spin to deliver a crushing ten wickets victory.
Both remain just above basement dwellers Worcestershire but will it matter? A pow-wow this week will finalise the structure of English domestic cricket next year, despite the fact that the current Championship season is well past the halfway mark. Honestly, what other sport would get itself into this situation?
Runaway leaders Leicestershire have prompted speculation that they might already have the Division Two title in the bag. But I doubt it was in the plan to test that theory out.
After a draw last week, they took a shellacking from Middlesex, the margin an innings and 127 runs. After Sam Robson and Ben Geddes had led the way to 534, the home side were eight down at Grace Road before three figures were on the board. A late rally helped them above 200 but, following on, the pattern more or less repeated itself.
Two young Middlesex bowlers did most of the damage. Noah Cornwell, a left-armer pacer in his third first-class match bagged four wickets. Naavya Sharma, a year younger and right arm also in his third match, helped himself to six scalps. Is the future looking brighter for the longsuffering Middlesex members? Well, it's a start.
Speaking of starts, Lancashire, under up-and-coming stand-in skipper James Anderson notched an entry in the win column at the ninth attempt.
At 132 for six, it was another sigh and another 'here we go again' for Red Rose fans, but Keaton Jennings found a partner in Chris Green and both scored tons, Jack Blatherwick and Tom Bailey contributing too. Anderson removed both openers, but it was George Balderson who ripped out the middle order and, for once this season, Lancashire were ahead in the game.
Ashton Turner was the century maker in the second dig and Anderson was soon running in with a lead of 512 and plenty of time, thinking this captaincy lark is a breeze. The other fortysomething skipper, Wayne Madsen, led the resistance, but Balderson, enjoying quite a match, picked up four victims and Lancashire were over the line and out of the bottom two.
This article is from The 99.94 Cricket Blog