Championship Round-Up

Posted by John Winn

In both divisions of the County Championship all teams have now played a quarter of their fixtures. With a maximum of twenty four points available for a win things can change quickly. In Division One for example the gap between top and bottom is already 53 points and in Division Two 47 points. Surrey have shown the boost a victory can give by rising from bottom to fourth this week in Division Two and in Division One Warwickshire's two successive defeats have seen them slip from top to fifth.
Yet only four teams are undefeated and only two teams are without a win, so no need for anybody to get too depressed except perhaps at Worcester where the promoted side have lost all four games. The almost constant sunshine has meant a low percentage of games ending in draws and with the bonus of some close finishes.
Do the tables reveal any surprises? Writing from the east side of The Pennines one might be tempted to say Lancashire's position at the top of Division One falls somewhere between a mistake and a fluke but their financial situation has forced them to rely more on home grown products and young players like Brown, Proctor and Kerrigan have taken their opportunity readily. At the bottom of the top division Hampshire will be disappointed to be only three points better off than Worcestershire.
In Division Two it is gratifying to see Gloucestershire in third place and despite having lost nearly all last season's attack they have taken maximum bowling points.
What of Yorkshire? If the glass is half empty then one could point to their only victory being over Worcestershire and the debacle against Notts at Headingley. But the shock of that result has been considerably softened by last week's performance at Trent Bridge, in particular by Bairstow's wonderful innings and the encouraging start made by Joe Root.This week the underperforming Hampshire come to Headingley, not exactly a must win but who would not draw delight from beating a team led by Dominic Cork?
No cricket watching for me this last weekend. Devotees of these postings may just have noticed a couple of earlier references to a football match that took place at Wembley on Saturday. What you may not be aware of is the result given that in most national papers on Sunday it merited something close to Twitter's 140 character limit. Darlington, whose promotion prospects were scuppered by their failure to realise that goals scored by the opposition in stoppage time actually count against you, beat Mansfield 1-0 with a goal in the last minute of extra time and to take it even further into the realms of fantasy it came from header scored by the smallest man on the field. Joy was unconfined. I will be at Headingley on Thursday, recognisable by a wide grin.