Published: 22/09/2009 16:42:30 | Modified: 11/05/2010 15:27:50
Author: Christopher Martin-Jenkins | All Contributors
Championship holds interest to end
Helped by a drier summer and Durham's utter supremacy, the denouement in the LV County Championship this week is likely to be rather less nail-biting than it has been in the last two years.
The scoring system is such, however, that it could still not be until Saturday evening that we know for sure which counties will be counting the greatly enhanced prize-money beside Durham and the equally dominating Second Division champions, Kent.
The feeling of wretchedness that, in sharp contrast, will be suffered by Worcestershire and, in all probability, Sussex, can be judged by the piece posted on this site earlier this week by one Sussex cricketer hoping to play in the county's final Championship match at Trent Bridge.
Twenty-two points against Nottinghamshire could yet save the champions of 2003, 2006 and 2007 from relegation but it is an unlikely outcome after the successive home defeats against Warwickshire and Yorkshire, neither of whom were safe from the spectre of relegation at the outset of those games.
Sussex's eventual heavy defeat by Yorkshire was notable for Matthew Hoggard's second career hat-trick (how well I remember the first in Barbados) and for the all-round cricket of David Wainwright.
The little left-hander's 85 not out showed that batting on a slow and very dry surface was not impossible but something drastic needs to be done with the square at Hove if Sussex, assuming no miraculous escape this week, are to bounce back into the first division next season by starting to win many more games on their home patch.
One-day success for Sussex has resulted in two extra knock-out matches on one of the smaller squares in the county game, so no unused pitch was available for the crucial match against Yorkshire.
All the same, it was evident from the scores in the only Championship match Sussex have won there for more than two seasons - against Worcestershire - that it was played on a pitch with a bit more green grass on it than has been customary since the Mushtaq Ahmed era.
It would be a dangerous policy for Sussex to follow next season to put all their eggs into Piyush Chawla's basket as, judged from a middle distance at least, seems to have been the plan in the last two disastrous games.
At least Sussex have the more than considerable consolation of a dazzling succession of one-day victories: Twenty20 Cup success for the first time, leading to who knows what further excitement in India next month; the final of the Friends' Provident at Lord's; and, if they win their final match at Worcester on Sunday, a second trophy in the Pro40.
Not so poor Worcestershire, who could not quite force a victory against Somerset despite the admirable resilience they showed at Taunton last week.
As most of their 'star' players desert the ship, they will take heart that the man who set up the potential upset was one of their own local players, Daryl Mitchell. Predictably, too, another man committed to the county's future, Matt Mason, helped to enforce the follow-on.
Durham seek a ninth win and an unbeaten season at New Road this week. It would be an even bigger surprise if they do not achieve it.
Their director of cricket since 1991, Geoff Cook, received the Peter Smith award from the Cricket Writers' Club on Monday for the presentation of the honourable face of cricket to the public over a lifetime of devotion to the game.
He ascribed Durham's wonderful success, both in winning the title twice running and in producing much of England's recent fast bowling talent, to spirit as well as talent.
“Every cricket club in Durham has got lots of enthusiastic young players,” he said. That is the way to do it but the production of pitches with some - not too much - life is another reason why Durham have been able to get the right balance between fast and spin bowling, and also to produce batsmen who know that they can hit through the line with proper judgement but without fear.
The biggest interest in this week's final round of games surrounds the issues of who will come second to Durham- Notts, at home, are clearly favourites, needing ten points to snatch the second prize of £225,000 from Somerset- and which of the five counties separated by a mere eleven points in the second division will be promoted alongside Kent. Essex, Northants, Derbyshire, Glamorgan and Gloucestershire are all hoping for fine weather and even finer cricket.
That Sky have chosen to transmit the Derbyshire versus Essex game at Derby shows, perhaps, that not all is lost for those who sink to the lower division.