Key events
A view from the outfield:
OOOF and there goes Hameed as well, off stump trailing behind him. Notts 17-2.
After an unprofitable search through the cupboards for elevenses, time for a skip through the Division One grounds. Just two games are in play
Kent are batting again and, as I type, all is well: 0-0, if 119 runs behind. Somerset must be happy with 403 as a first match, first innings attempt (though we remember the wiles of the Kookaburra ball.)
At Trent Bridge, Ben Duckett has just gone cheaply for the second time in the game, bowled, also for the second time in the game, though this time by Jamie Porter. Notts 15-1 need 320 to win. A good morning for Porter, who smashed his first ball to the rope before Essex declared on 374-9.
An inspector calls
and prods the ground with an umbrella. A further inspection at noon at Durham, at 12.45 at Old Trafford.
Somerset made a brisk start to their morning but have lost Kasey Aldridge for 57 – the same score as James Rew made yesterday, starting as he left off last year, with a fluent half century. Somerset 388-8, a lead of 104.
Happy Birthday to the Gaffer!
Happy birthday to Alec Stewart and one of cricket’s best statistical quirks 👍
🗓️ DOB: 8/4/63
🏏 Test runs: 8,463 pic.twitter.com/cY0Balqjuq— The Cricketer (@TheCricketerMag) April 8, 2024
And we get underway at Hove, Canterbury, Trent Bridge and Lord’s. Best chance of a result in Nottingham, I think.
A fistful of reads with your coffee. This is interesting on Dawid Malan, who I had completely forgotten had quit red-ball cricket, a Jos Buttler IPL century, an IPL round-up and Sophie Molineux returns to the Australian fold.
And if you’re an up and coming cricket commentator in the north east, this could be for you.
Are you an aspiring cricket/sports commentator in the North East of England and looking for opportunities to kick start your commentary career.
Please drop me a message, there could be opportunities at Durham Cricket for you this summer. 📧🏏🎙️
— Sam Blacklock (@Sam_Blacklock_) April 4, 2024
This is nothing whatsoever to do with cricket – though I do wish Hundred teams had been named after local threatened species – but thought it might appeal to readers BTL.
The Guardian today launches the (British) Invertebrate of the Year competition. A lovely way to highlight the importance and wonder of the vast majority of life on Earth. Everyone can vote and nominate their own too @Buzz_dont_tweet https://t.co/FwbOQG3bmh
— Patrick Barkham (@patrick_barkham) April 2, 2024
Bless their optimistic hearts:
Elsewhere, an 11am inspection at Headingley, now news yet from Old Trafford, and 11am starts expected at Kent, Edgbaston, Lord’s, Trent Bridge and Hove.
Weather watch
If you’re not at a ground which is already saturated, and not in the west, you may be ok.
The Met office verdict: “A low pressure system arrives on Monday giving further wet and windy weather, especially for southwest England, Wales and Northern Ireland. Sunny spells elsewhere, but heavy and blustery showers in the southeast during the afternoon, with hail and thunder possible.”
Scores on the doors
DIVISION ONE
Chester le Street: Durham v Hampshire no play on days one, two or three. inspection at 10am
Canterbury: Kent 284 all out v Somerset 374-7
Old Trafford: Lancashire 202 v Surrey 15-0
Trent Bridge: Nottinghamshire 293 v Essex 253 and 329-8
Edgbaston: Warwickshire 333 v Worcestershire 360 and 237-2
DIVISION TWO
Derby: Derbyshire v Gloucestershire match abandoned without a ball bowled
Lord’s: Middlesex 460-5-4 v Glamorgan 620-3dec
Hove: Sussex 351-6 v Northamptonshire 371
Headingley: Yorkshire 72-2 v Leicestershire 354
Sunday’s round up
Kashif Ali’s dream debut in Division One continued when he knocked up a second century within three days for Worcestershire against Warwickshire at Edgbaston. This one was even sparkier, 133 runs of gumption made at better than a run a ball – his hundred reached, as on Friday, with a six.
Kashif is a graduate of the South Asian Cricket Academy, set up in 2020 to tackle the under‑representation of British Asians in professional cricket – they make up 30% of recreational players but only 5% of the men’s professional game. Kashif was one of seven male Saca players to get a professional contract with a county in 2022‑23, the first to make a first-class century and now the first to score two in a match. He also put his name in lights as the first Worcestershire player to make two hundreds in a game since Daryl Mitchell in 2018, who tweeted: “He gets em far quicker than I ever did.”
A tantalising final day is on the cards at Trent Bridge where a 132‑run partnership between Matt Critchley and Paul Walter lugged Essex out of a sticky situation against Nottinghamshire: from five down with a lead of just 89, to a lead of 289 at stumps. It was cheering news after Feroze Khushi’s bat fell foul of the umpire’s bat gauge on Saturday evening and a potential points deduction awaits.
A gusting, swirling wind stopped play at Old Trafford when the head grounds manager, Matt Merchant, together with the club’s safety officer, decided that it was too windy for his staff to risk lifting the groundsheets that had been put down at lunchtime as a precaution against predicted rain. Shortly afterwards the deluge arrived and washed out the rest of the day, allowing Lancashire and Surrey players to watch the United game just across the way. It was the first time the match referee, Mike Smith, had come across wind stopping play, but he confirmed there was a similar situation at Edgbaston where the head groundsman, Gary Barwell, had said he would not be asking his staff to put heavy flat sheets on in high winds.
A draw looks most likely in NW8 as Mark Stoneman crafted a 97 and Ryan Higgins his first century at Lord’s, to take Middlesex in sniffing distance of avoiding the follow‑on against Glamorgan: 1,080 runs, including Sam Northeast’s 335, have been scored in three days for the loss of just eight wickets on a gentle pitch, aided and abetted by a Kookaburra ball.
Tom Haines fashioned his first championship hundred since September 2022 as Sussex played catchup with Northamptonshire at Hove. James Coles, still only 20, danced to a pretty 78. And Matt Parkinson celebrated his first wicket for Kent, a screaming leg-break, as Somerset’s batters chugged towards a draw at Canterbury.
There was no play at Durham or Derby for the third day in a row, and Harry Brook still awaits his first innings of the season after the day was washed out at Headingley.
Match abandoned at Derby…
…with not a ball bowled. The first time since 1981 that there has been no play in a championship match at Derby.
Preamble
Good morning! It is, I’m afraid, still wet.
But in the brief period of time when I walked the dog and the sun came out, the wood smelled of wild garlic and lovely damp trees and two herons creaked above the trees like the ancient mechanical creatures they are.
