With the dust barely settled on Yorkshire's defeat by Somerset on Saturday, more of which anon, and all counties in action again tomorrow the county championship enthusiast barely has time to draw breath and such will remain the case until the end of the month. Given the sort of weather we had last week and provided you don't expect things to go well that will be no hardship for many. Various conflicts of interest have prevented Lower Ure Valley Tours finalising this week's activities but Trent Bridge on Wednesday seems close to certainty.
Last Wednesday despite a serious accident on the A1 near Ripon which caused a major diversion I arrived in time for the start of Durham's game with Northants and for the third time this season the uncontested toss regulation meant Durham were asked to bat first. In other words a team short on confidence, experience and talent and missing overseas star Tom Latham had to try and counter the moving ball on a wicket that almost invariably favours seam bowlers for at least the first hour and as on the previous two occasions found themselves bowled out cheaply, this time just after lunch. Lees making his home debut took his time to get off the mark but thereafter played some decent shots but 129 all out was never going to be enough and by close of play Northants had a lead which they extended on the second morning to 69. Apart from Steel and Collingwood second time around was no better and the game was won by the visitors shortly after tea by seven wickets. Another 100 runs and Northants might have struggled, had ten men got just ten more runs each in two innings things might have been different. Too much to ask? Apparently yes. Even Collingwood, who averages under 13 in red ball cricket this season played an inexcusable shot in the last over before lunch on the first day and McCarthy coming in at 102 for 8 played an attacking shot to all four balls he received, connected with the fourth and was out for nowt. Brainless. Still not all bad news for Durham have today announced that next season will see the return of Ben Raine, exiled at Grace Road for six seasons but who wishes to return to the North East for personal reasons.
The rest of the week was spent at Headingley and a story that probably does not need to be retold especially Thursday's and Friday's play when decent sized crowds saw Somerset build a position whereby come stumps on Friday night Yorkshire were 8 for 2, with both openers back in the pavilion and needing to bat all day on Saturday to get five important points. The crowd was by some distance the smallest of the week, even Caddick Construction didn't bother to turn up and I am never sure whether it is the optimists or the pessimists who appear on these occasions but at least until about ten minutes before lunch we were all reasonably happy. No more could have been asked of Nightwatchman Shaw and the feeling seemed to be that he was unlucky to be given out lbw except for a man from Edinburgh seated in front of me who declared his favour for the West Country with a shout of triumph. Why he should not be supporting Yorkshire was not clear. 880 years seems a long time but perhaps he still bears a grudge about his lads' defeat at The Battle of The Standard.
And that was just about as good as it got for not long after lunch Yorkshire were 103 for 6, a situation not made any more pleasant by the band tuning up for the Rugby League game due to begin behind the new stand. The fall of the fifth wicket was too much for a stalwart couple who had sat stoically throughout the morning's play and possibly since April. They can barely have reached the exit before Ballance joined them. Some nice shots from Willey with help from the injured Fisher, he misses the trip to Trent Bridge, took us to tea at 163 for 8 but with 37 overs left there were not many saying 'Maybe just Maybe' as they sipped their cuppas. Just after half past four Fisher went and not wishing to be tangled up in traffic leaving the Rhinos match, so did I. Eight minutes later Brooks was caught at slip and the game was up.
A slight diversion on the way home took me here, a ground I have passed several times but where I had never seen cricket.
A Dales Council Division 1 match in progress with Thornbury the visitors. Tea was over and Caribbean were in the field defending 110 all out, a task in which they were successful with Thornbury all out for 100. The league table shows Thornbury third, Caribbean sixth and Leeds Sikh top.
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