Surrey face a battle to save their perfect start to their LV= Insurance County Championship title defence after seeing Kent build a substantial lead on day two at Canterbury.
The champions were all out for 145 in their first innings, with Matt Quinn taking three for 22 and Wes Agar three for 32, while India’s Arshdeep Singh took his first Championship wickets.
Tawanda Muyeye then hit 79 and Daniel Bell-Drummond made 59 as Kent moved to 197 for six in their second innings, a lead of 353, but a productive evening session gave the visitors hope going into day three as Dan Worrall claimed three for 53.
Warwickshire, who occupy second place in Division One, have a firm grip at the halfway stage against Nottinghamshire at Trent Bridge and are poised to benefit if Surrey slip up.
By the time an approaching electrical storm had seen the players taken off just before 5pm, Nottinghamshire were in deep trouble at 82 for five in their first innings, still 489 runs behind after Warwickshire declared at 571 for nine.
Pakistan international Hasan Ali had taken two wickets in addition to his quickfire 54 with the bat, with wicketkeeper Michael Burgess grabbing two catches to go with his unbeaten 77 earlier.
Lancashire lead by 113 runs after two days of their match against Hampshire at Southport.
The visitors were indebted to a career-best six-wicket haul by Felix Organ after Phil Salt had struck his first century for Lancashire, with Daryl Mitchell and George Bell contributing significantly to the hosts’ first-innings 374 to give the home side a huge 232-run lead.
A determined unbeaten second-wicket partnership between Fletcha Middleton (44 not out) and Nick Gubbins (45 not out) then helped take 95 runs off that advantage as Hampshire closed on 119 for one in their second innings.
Simon Harmer claimed his first five-wicket haul of the season as Essex put themselves into a strong position against Somerset.
Harmer had taken 18 wickets in his first six Championship appearances of the season but tore through the Somerset lower order after Jamie Porter had dealt with the top order and seen the visitors slump to 10 for three.
Somerset were bowled out for 167 and trailed after the first innings by 295 runs, but Essex did not enforce the follow-on and ended the day on 15 for one – a lead of 310.
In Division Two, centuries from David Bedingham and Ollie Robinson provided the foundations as leaders Durham staged a fightback against Glamorgan.
The visitors reduced Durham to 119 for four to pile on the pressure, but Robinson and Bedingham responded with a stand of 171 for the fifth wicket and they finished the day on 411 for five.
Worcestershire opener Jake Libby was left needing just two more runs to complete back-to-back double hundreds against Sussex after dominating on the second day at Hove.
It looked like being a day of unrelenting toil for Sussex when Libby and Adam Hose passed their first-innings score of 348 during a fourth-wicket stand of 192 either side of tea, but Sussex fought back admirably in the final hour to take six wickets.
Libby, though, proved immovable and will resume on Tuesday on 198 out of a total of 410 for nine, a lead of 62.
A brilliant exhibition of counter-attacking batting by Leus du Plooy and Haider Ali halted Yorkshire’s victory charge in its tracks and rescued Derbyshire at Chesterfield.
Derbyshire’s decision to move Ali down the order proved to be inspired as the Pakistani opener scored his first century for the county and shared an unbroken record-breaking fifth-wicket stand with Du Plooy of 231 from 311 balls.
They had come together with Derbyshire heading for defeat at 17 for four after Dawid Malan’s 106 guided Yorkshire to 353 and a lead of 242 with spinner Mark Watt taking a career-best five for 83.
But Du Plooy’s 96 and Ali’s 129 lifted the home side to 248 for four and a lead of six when bad light, followed by an electrical storm, ended play with 10 overs left in the day.
Yorkshire had looked set for an even bigger lead until the dismissal of Malan sparked a collapse that saw the last five wickets fall for 28 runs.
Ollie Price celebrated his 22nd birthday with a career-best first class score as Gloucestershire fought back strongly against Leicestershire in Bristol.
Struggling at 118 for five early in the morning session, the hosts battled hard to post a first-innings total of 368, Price contributing 85 off 172 balls, with 12 fours.
There was also a career-best 52 from Ajeet Dale, sharing a ninth-wicket stand of 111 with Danny Lamb, who marked his Championship debut for Gloucestershire with a battling 70, including three sixes.
By the close, Leicestershire had responded with 23 for no wicket from five overs.
Tape ball programme can help England find unorthodox talent – Richard Gould
The England and Wales Cricket Board hopes to unearth a new seam of talent beyond the game’s traditional league structure with a national tape ball scheme that allows players to thrive without “whites, willow and leather”.
The practice of using a soft ball wrapped in electrical tape to aid swing and variable bounce is a common one in Asia, where it has helped produce express pace bowlers like Haris Rauf, Shaheen Afridi and spinners such as Rashid Khan and Shakib-al-Hasan, but has been slow to enter the mainstream conversation in the United Kingdom.
The Chance to Shine charity has long pioneered tape ball cricket as part of its engagement hubs and now, with the ECB keen to live up to its lofty aspiration of becoming the most inclusive team sport in the country, it is at the heart of a new core cities programme designed to engage ‘diverse communities in urban areas’.
Speaking at a launch event where games were hosted in a warehouse space in Birmingham, ECB chief executive Richard Gould was optimistic about reaching out to those with an interest in cricket but limited access to the pavilions and prepared pitches in the club setup.
“We talk about clubs with picket fences around them. In the past that has been seen as the preserve of the ECB. We’ve missed a complete trick on that,” he said.
“When we talk about the recreational game we’re not just talking about Premier League clubs and village cricket clubs now. We’re talking about all forms of cricket that take place.
“You can play the game anywhere, any time, with anybody, in any environment you want. You don’t have to have whites, willow and leather to do it. You can just pick up a bat and a ball and have some fun.”
As well as fulfilling its remit of reaching out to all comers at a grassroots level, Gould also believes there are benefits to finding cricketers with different styles who have learned the game outside the traditional, private-school heavy pathways.
“Without doubt there are,” he said. “We have to get out and try to find the talent. More to the point, we have to try and find talent in areas that we haven’t normally looked for it.
“I do think county pathways will be looking to make sure they don’t miss out on this talent. It’s just about punching through all of our normal procedures and finding ways to both get people in the game and unearthing that talent which may be unorthodox and great.”
Meg Lanning: Exercise obsession and not enough fuel led to Australia retirement
Former Australia captain Meg Lanning revealed her “obsession” with exercise and not eating enough precipitated her surprise international retirement late last year.
Lanning was at the helm of one of the most dominant eras the sport has ever seen but she missed last year’s Ashes for medical reasons and pulled the plug on her Australia career in November.
She opened up about her hidden health issues on the Howie Games podcast, explaining that running up to 90 kilometres a week coupled with eating two small meals a day led to her dropping from 64kg to 57kg.
View this post on Instagram“I was over-exercising and under-fuelling,” the 32-year-old said. “It wasn’t a physical thing. I’ve always been really physically active and liked that side of it, but it became a bit of an obsession.
“I’d maybe eat a couple of meals a day if I was lucky but they weren’t significant. Initially it didn’t start off as a deliberate thing, it just became a bit of a new normal.
“But it slowly crept into conscious decisions because essentially I felt good.
“I wasn’t getting injured like everybody was telling me I was going to do. It sort of just spiralled and I was in denial, even though everybody kept telling me something wasn’t quite right.
“I was not in a place to be able to go on tour and play cricket and give the commitment levels that were required for that Ashes series, mentally and physically.”
Lanning, who led Australia to five World Cup titles in total and Commonwealth Games glory in 2022, said her struggle was not officially diagnosed as an eating disorder.
“It wasn’t labelled as that but I was exercising a lot and I wasn’t eating enough to fuel that – it was a bit out of whack,” Lanning said.
“It was a bit of control because I felt very out of control with what my future looked like. I felt like I was in control of that and that made me feel better.”
Lanning sought help from medical professionals after also struggling with insomnia and continues to play domestically, while she has been signed for London Spirit for The Hundred this year.
“I dreaded night time because I knew I would go to bed and not be able to sleep,” she said. “That would make me so mad. I would just get more angry with myself. If you can’t sleep, you can’t do anything.
“I feel like I’m in a good spot now. Cricket is still part of what I do. But I wasn’t cut out for the international touring schedule and what came with all of that.”
Yorkshire not in ECB’s new ‘Tier 1’ revamp of women’s professional game
Yorkshire will have to wait until 2027 to take part in the England and Wales Cricket Board’s new ‘Tier 1’ revamp of the women’s professional game, after eight other counties were selected to lead the way.
Durham, Essex, Hampshire, Lancashire, Nottinghamshire, Somerset, Surrey and Warwickshire have been chosen as hosts, with the governing body abolishing the existing regional structure in favour of alignment with the first-class counties.
The blow to Yorkshire, for whom this is a further setback after several turbulent years on and off the field, has been mitigated by a promise to bring them into an expanded competition in the third season.
Glamorgan have been given the same assurances and both will receive additional funding to help build their pathway.
But there will be no ‘Tier 1’ cricket at Lord’s in the foreseeable future, with MCC declining to put itself forward and Middlesex among those overlooked. Sussex have also been left on the outside looking in, despite a long and strong commitment to the women’s game.
They will be hoping to be included as the elite level continues to grow, with the ECB outlining plans to further expand to 12 teams by 2029.
ECB chief executive Richard Gould said: “I’d like to congratulate those counties who have been successful in their bids.
“I’m also delighted that in light of the support we have seen and the strength of the bids we have considered, we can accelerate our plans, including new top tier professional teams at Glamorgan and Yorkshire by 2027 with a further two being introduced by 2029.
“More professional teams means more women able to make a career out of being a cricketer, more role models to inspire future generations, and more of the country having a women’s professional team to follow nearby.
“I recognise today’s announcement will also be disappointing to those who haven’t been successful at this stage. But with the new three-tier structure we are introducing, there is still a huge opportunity for them to compete in the other tiers so together we can all realise the potential of women’s domestic cricket.”
Beth Barrett-Wild, the ECB’s director of the women’s professional game, praised the calibre of offers from around the country.
“At the start of this tender process we challenged the first-class counties to show us their vision for the women’s professional game and to demonstrate their desire and commitment to becoming one of our professional Tier 1 clubs,” she said.
“Over the last couple of months it’s been brilliant to see the time and energy that has gone into the submissions, and I’ve been hugely impressed by the quality and ambition of the bids.
“It’s clear that the game is united in wanting to take the women’s professional game forward. I’m energised about what comes next, for the counties themselves, for the players, for fans and for everyone who wants to see women’s cricket continue its accelerated trajectory.”
The ECB has put £5million per year of new funding into the women’s domestic set-up, rising to £8million when Yorkshire and Glamorgan come aboard.
It estimates a potential increase of 80 per cent in the number of professional female players.
There will be no promotion or relegation between 2025 and 2028, allowing the new three-tier system to bed in.
SportsMax is the Caribbean sports channel of choice, committed to providing sporting content of the highest quality to the Caribbean, delivered by a team of highly innovative, passionate and qualified professionals.
(876) 619-7629
digitalmedia@sportsmax.tv
