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Good morning Tim Maitland:<\/p>\n
\u201cYou\u2019ll forgive me for missing day one of the denouement, but I was distracted by a minor case of the WE\u2019RE ALL GOING TO DIE!!!s.<\/p>\n
\u201dFortunately Super Typhoon Ragasa did not turn out to be quite as apocalyptic as advertised. It\u2019s true, my neighbour did lose the glorified shed off the top of their roof (fortunately, not in our direction. Christmas will be cancelled unless they replace that artificial tree) and another had a hefty plant pot, with plant still attached, drop on his car from two stories up (Allegedly. I say allegedly, having surveyed the damage, that\u2019s what I think happened) to leave a sizable dent in the roof and a terminal crack in his windscreen. Overall, we got away with it quite lightly. <\/p>\n
\u201dHaving said that, if some genius on the OBO can explain, I\u2019d love to know why Ragasa, the biggest tropical storm in the world this year, only uprooted trees, whereas six years ago Typhoon Mangkhut took mature trees and twisted their trunks halfway up as if they were matchsticks.<\/p>\n
\u201dAnyway, the point of all of this drivel is to ask one simple question: is it really so difficult for English cricket to ensure that all of the counties have access to their best players for the T20 final and the promotion\/relegation\/championship deciders? <\/p>\n
\u201dIt\u2019s obviously not a simple question. Because Sport 101 – the simplest, most rudimentary rules of running a competition – is to know what next year\u2019s competitions are going to look like BEFORE you start this year\u2019s. Anything else is utterly confusing, distracting and divisive.<\/p>\n
\u201dObviously, they couldn\u2019t do that, but still, having the season\u2019s success and failures decided by teams half-filled with players from \u201cThe Stiffs\u201d is in no-one\u2019s best interests, is it?<\/p>\n
\u201dI shall miss you and the opportunities to whinge that you provide.\u201d<\/p>\n
Perhaps they should just leave comments from the last day of the season\u2019s CCLive open till April. (And I\u2019m glad you survived!)<\/p>\n
Share<\/a><\/p>\n To keep things interesting, Matt Fisher has just taken two wickets in his first over \u2013 Albert and Brown. Hampshire<\/a> 155-5.<\/p>\n Share<\/a><\/p>\n Fans slip into the stands, lonely sparrows and paired up love birds. Who doesn\u2019t want HH to hit the winning runs? Notts are 0-0 after two overs.<\/p>\n Share<\/a><\/p>\n There will be 104 overs at Trent Bridge which increases Notts chances of pulling things off today \u2013 though The Cricketer\u2019s George Dobell says it was hard going batting yesterday.<\/p>\n Share<\/a><\/p>\n It is said that the Trent Bridge groundsman prepared three tracks just in case \u2013 a spicy one, an inbetween one and a road. No prizes for guessing which one Notts plumped for.<\/p>\n Share<\/a><\/p>\n It wasn\u2019t a furious Gareth Batty who spoke to the press last night at the Rosebowl, but his deputy Jim Troughton.<\/p>\n \u201cOver the last four years there has been a lot of success in this group and a lot of good days. The last game (vs Notts) was a tough one because we played a lot of good cricket and there were moments we let the game slip but then gave ourselves a chance to get back into it. It could have been a lot different points wise coming here.<\/p>\n \u201cThere are some younger faces in this group so it is up to the senior guys to front up and make sure they are taking the load off those guys.<\/p>\n \u201cFour day cricket is a tough place to be when you are on the end of a difficult situation, it is not something we have had to get used to dealing with.<\/p>\n \u201cThe guys will shower it off, fuel up for tomorrow and acquit ourselves better.\u201d<\/p>\n Share<\/a><\/p>\n Meanwhile, at Headingley, David Hopps sniffs the autumn air.<\/p>\n There are some who claim perfectly sincerely that avoiding relegation and reaching the semi-final of the Metro Cup would represent a reasonably successful season for Yorkshire<\/a>.<\/p>\n But to present reaching the last four of a developmental competition as success, while ignoring yet another summer\u2019s failure in the Blast is like telling a 11-year-old on Christmas Day not to get too upset over the absence of a Skalextric because a dressing gown will come in very useful. You don\u2019t just get cricket on this blog, you get emotional scars, too.<\/p>\n And that relegation cannot yet be discounted. Yorkshire might have dominated much of the first day against Durham<\/a>, their rivals in distress, but Ben Raine\u2019s doughty assault against the second new ball (87 not out from 85 balls) sees Durham resume on 322-7 and not too far off parity. An engrossing day lies ahead.<\/p>\n Share<\/a><\/p>\n The Notts players are warming up with a spring in both steps, heart and lungs. Three hundred runs will clinch the Championship for them today after Surrey\u2019s shambling day at Hampshire<\/a>. The sun shines on.<\/p>\n Share<\/a>Thursday\u2019s roundup<\/p>\n As the season\u2019s last round of championship cricket rolled around, players paid tribute to Dickie Bird, who died on Tuesday, aged 92. At his spiritual home, Headingley, a minute\u2019s applause was observed, the players lining up on the pitch, and a bouquet of flowers and trademark umpire\u2019s white cap placed on Bird\u2019s dressing\u2011room balcony chair.<\/p>\n Bird, who funded the balcony in 2015, would have enjoyed the first five overs of the day when Yorkshire reduced their fellow relegation candidates Durham to seven for two, but 93 from David Bedingham and an unbeaten 87 from Ben Raine turned the tables. Yorkshire<\/a> need eight more points to be sure of Division One cricket next year, Durham may require a win because of Surrey\u2019s impression of a soggy paper bag at the hands of fellow strugglers Hampshire.<\/p>\n Surrey, champions for three years on the bounce, needed a maximum point win to put pressure on the leaders, Nottinghamshire<\/a>. But, albeit with a side weakened by illness and the withdrawal of England players, they were dismissed for just 147, their lowest total of the season. Dan Lawrence top scored with 36. There were three wickets each for James Fuller, Washington Sundar and Kyle Abbott, who passed fifty wickets for the summer for the sixth time. Hampshire then sailed calmly to a seven-run lead at stumps.<\/p>\n All of which was music to the ears of Nottinghamshire, who bowled out Warwickshire for 258 in a frenetic last session and now need just two more points \u2013 300 runs \u2013 to secure the title. Warwickshire<\/a> had revived at 244 for five but lost their last five wickets for 14 runs, Dan Mousley last man out for 74.<\/p>\n Elsewhere, Steve Eskinazi made a first century for Leicestershire against Northamptonshire, Middlesex\u2019s captain, Leus du Plooy, biffed an unbeaten 171 against Gloucestershire, the Somerset academy graduate Josh Thomas hit a run-a-ball fifty on his championship debut proper, and James Rew his fifth 50 of the summer to frustrate Essex, who remain in relegation danger.<\/p>\n After a season of wrangling, meetings, more meetings, letters and votes, the England and Wales Cricket Board announced that the motion to remodel the County Championship<\/a> structure had not received the required two-thirds majority of votes it needed to pass. The 18 first-class counties were tied at 9-9, which means the current two-division 14-game, two up, two down, competition remains.<\/p>\n The announcement drew an immediate retort from the Professional Cricketers\u2019 Association. The union\u2019s chief executive, Daryl Mitchell, said the current structure was \u201cnot fit for purpose,\u201d while its chair, Olly Hannon-Dalby, said: \u201cOver the past two years, we have seen increasing levels of genuine concern for player health and wellbeing and as an association we represented this in the strongest possible way. Ultimately the required minimum number of 12 county chairs did not see player welfare as a priority.\u201d<\/p>\n Share<\/a>Scores on the doors<\/p>\n Chelmsford: Essex v Somerset<\/a> 339-6<\/p>\n Southampton: Hampshire<\/a> 154-3 v Surrey 147<\/p>\n Trent Bridge: Nottinghamshire<\/a> v Warwickshire 258<\/p>\n New Road: Worcestershire<\/a> 123 v Sussex 228-5<\/p>\n Headingley: Yorkshire<\/a> v Durham 322-7<\/p>\n DIVISION TWO<\/p>\n Sophia Gardens: Glamorgan 265 v Lancashire<\/a>55-0<\/p>\n Canterbury: Kent v Derbyshire<\/a> 389-2<\/p>\n Lord\u2019s: Middlesex 394-5 v Gloucestershire<\/p>\n Wantage Road: Northamptonshire<\/a> v Leicestershire 392-7<\/p>\n