And so the first round of county championship matches are over and there has already been a number of impressive performances around the county circuit by both individuals and teams.
Ben Stokes had a first round to remember. Stokes taking career best bowling figures of 6-68 and then smashing 135 of 145 balls including five 6’s in a row, but Durham could not push for victory on the final day as Hampshire batted out the final day without much trouble. Durham were left regretting the injury proneness of Steve Harmison who only bowled 3.2 overs in the whole match. Spinners Ian Blackwell and Scott Borthwick both bowled long spells but could only attain 4 wickets between them as another England Lion Jimmy Adams got his season going with a steadfast hundred after his first innings golden duck.
Adams at 30 had his best year last season by some distance. His style is more attritional rather than fluent as he plays in an old fashioned manner building an innings, his first fifty usually coming slowly before gently accelerating. He seems capable of making really big contributions from the top of the order and last season also seemed to make a lot of runs when the rest of the team weren’t which is the real indicator of a good fighter who is resilient and strong mentally. It Seems unlikely at 30 that he will get a chance with England with Cook and Strauss settled at the top of the order at present and a number of other strong batting candidates at a younger age but expect him to continue to score important runs for Hampshire and be the man on which the rest of the team bats around. He has shown an ability in the one day game to open up his game having had great success in 20:20 competitions in recent years, last year he was the top scorer with 668 runs at 39.29 @ 132.27 and had a successful spell in New Zealand with Auckland in the winter where he made a match winning contribution in the final of the regional 20:20.
Adil Rashid was another with outstanding first week credentials and had match figures of 11-114 in Yorkshires cruise to victory over Worcestershire. By all accounts Worcestershire were awful as they succumbed second time around but Rashid’s figures nonetheless are brilliant and he seems to have found both greater consistency and has more variations taking a number of wickets with sliders and offspinners to compliment his normal legbreaks. Rashid this winter had a successful spell with South Australia in the 20:20 Big Bash and many of his variations are noticeable in this clip.
A general trend in Rashid’s bowling seems to be that he can drop early short and if you can get after him you can hit him out of the attack, let him settle and he will eventually get you out. It is noticeable in the clip that he takes a number of wickets caught on the boundary. In Australia the boundaries tend to be the longest in the world and you wonder how Rashid would do on the shorter boundaries especially in India.
Gloucestershire took an early step to proving the critics wrong, including myself, by winning their first game of the season and going top of division 2 albeit against the equally poor Derbyshire. It was quite some achievement with 5 men making first class debut with impressive performances by Liam Norwell, David Payne, Ian Cockbain and Will Gidman all on debut.
Leicestershire got off to a good start in the second division as they beat Glamorgan by 89 runs. Leicestershires bowling attack looks quite varied and skilled, Buck and Hoggard are accomplished opening bowlers, Naik and Henderson are contrasting spinners but the backup probably isn’t so experienced and as with so many teams in the second division so much may depend on the fitness of the first xi.
Glenn Chapple dispelled my fears about his fitness and Lancashire’s chances as they soundly destroyed Sussex winning by an innings and 55 as Chapple took 9 wickets and Sussex putting up a poor effort collapsing second time around, which doesn’t exactly bode well for the rest of their season.
Credit must go to the BBC and the ECB for their coverage of the county season. The BBC’s regional radio stations produce live coverage of most games and the ECB have brief highlights of each days play.
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