Key events
Things have briefly calmed down at Headingley, let’s delve into Division Two.
Ben Aitchinson has picked up a Vasconcelos (58) to go alongside his century at Wantage Road, Northants 126 for one.
And shock as someone who isn’t Craig Overton pockets a wicket at Headingley, James Wharton’s stump also disappears. Yorkshire 21 for three.
Stephen Moss (that one) writes in to say that he later found out, and was sad to miss, that a fox appeared at The Oval yesterday and briefly stopped play. It’s a different gravy in south London today, where Glamorgan have eased to 189-2 – Tribe 82 not out, Carlson 43 not out. The lead over Surrey, 206.
Nicholls makes no mistake at first slip as Adam Lyth mis-dabs. Overton, of course. Hands on hips, he is already walking back to his mark. Yorkshire five for two.
Craig Overton’s second ball plucks and scatters Will Luxton’s middle stump. Who writes, etc.
The clouds were gathering around Headingley at lunch and Somerset were out in the middle, stretching, bowling, catching.
Thanks to Chris Waters of the Yorkshire Post for the lowdown on Ben Cliff. His figures were the best for a Yorkshireman since Craig White’s 8-55 at Glos in 1998, and the best at Headingley since Graham Stevenson’s 8-57 v Northants in 1980.
Lunchtime scores
Division One
Chelmsford: Essex 134 and 67-1 v Warwickshire 191
Grace Road: Leicestershire 244 v Hampshire 214 and 20-0
The Oval: Surrey 115 v Glamorgan 132 and 115-2
Hove: Sussex 87-2 v Nottinghamshire 240
Headingley: Yorkshire 212 v Somerset 201
Division Two
Chester-le-Street: Durham 465 v Worcestershire 60-0
Bristol: Gloucestershire 68-1 v Middlesex 326
Canterbury: Kent 214 v Lancashire 161 and 38-1
Wantage Road: Northamptonshire 96-0 v Derbyshire 372
Eight wickets for Ben Cliff. Somerset trail Yorkshire by 11.
Astounding figures for Cliff, who grins as he leads off Yorkshire holding the match ball and figures of eight for 76.
And an innings of brute and brain from the man who bleeds tractors, finally comes to an end caught on the rope for 64 off 111 balls.
Time for some vegetable lasagne, back soon.
Lunch everywhere apart from Headingley. Lock in.
A agricultural swing by Overton brings four more off Cliff, boomed over Jonny Bairstow’s head. I think Anthony Gibson might have a little weep in a minute. The field spreads as Coad runs in to Overton, but he just turns him off his ankle for a single. The deficit 17.
After 20 wickets fell at The Oval yesterday, just the two today. Glamorgan are tip-toeing out of crisis mode at 115 for two, Asa Tribe, 44 not out.
Brilliant, Big Craig grabs his cudgel and reaches fifty with a huge six off Cliff. Whiteman gets a hand to it, maybe, but, if he does, carries it over the rope.The deficit 23.
Feel the passion! A huge roar as Pretorius nudges Cliff through to Hill at slip. And an equally raucous roar as Pretorius ambles off for 58, the deficit just 36. An incredible seventh wicket for Hill.
That Championship-winning partnership with Overton was worth 90 runs in 90 minutes.
At Hove, Notts haven’t been able to rattle through Sussex who head to lunch on a steady 74-2. A wicket each for the irrepressible Olly Stone and Tom Giles (Thomas and Haines).
On what must be a friendly CLS pitch, Worcestershire, 44-0, have seen off the the early flurries of Raine, Potts, Stokes and Aldridge.
In a quiet corner of the Championship, at Bristol, Middlesex added only another couple of runs this morning, and in reply Gloucestershire are 63 for one. Joe Phillips an early wicket to Morgan. Despite the organisational carnage, I do think Middlesex are a team with potential. Definite promotion candidates next year.
Biff! Four smacked through the offside and that’s the Pretorius fifty, off 59 balls. He raises his bat to the dressing room who roar encouragement. More! More! The deficit 48. What a timely highest-score of the season.
Batting looks a stroll at Wantage Road, where Vasconcelos and Procter have eased to a first-wicket partnership of 79.
Meanwhile Yorkshire somehow miss the opportunity to run out two colliding Somerset fast bowlers.
Back to Division Two where Kent, showing a Div One fighting spirit, shimmied a first-innings lead of 53. And Lancs, I’m afraid, have already lost Jennings, caught in slow motion with basket hands by Crawley at slip for a two-ball duck off Khaled. Lancs 8 for one.
The third Somerset fifty has come up in just 51 balls, as Overton sticks his huge front pad forward and prods Kuldeep away. The Leeds sun is still turning the turf a luminous green. The deficit 60.
Ooooh! Kuldeep time.
The BBC’s Kevin Howells walks past with a coffee, “it’s all very well people getting excited about next week,” he says, “it’s all being played out in front of our eyes right now.”
Overton and Pretorius meanwhile have reduced the deficit to 75.
And no century for Zak Crawley, who by all accounts has played outstandingly for his 84. This was Matt Milnes last night: “the way Zak batted was incredible, really. I thought, on that pitch and in the situation, that was worth 160 rather than 60 or whatever it is. So, yeah, it was a serious knock.”
Kent, now 200-9, have a gold-dust lead of 40 over Lancs (28 of them extras).
No! No century for the other Ollie Robinson, who must be satisfied with his highest score of a (relatively) lean year. Last man out for 97. Good luck Worcestershire for the coming onslaught.
Ali Martin
Is this the morning that secured the title for Warwickshire? We don’t know. We can’t know. But what we do know that their slim 17 runs lead overnight, nine wickets down, has since swelled to 57 before finally being bowled out for 191 by Essex. Sam Hain went from 58 not out to 88 not out, OHD gave it the barn door for 28 balls and then edged the 29th to slip. Tall Paul Walter snaffling the catch, having given OHD a life – and his only runs of the innings – with an earlier drop.
(a glorious four by Pretorius off Cliff, cracked down the ground). And a missive has dropped from Ali Martin….
While Overton and Pretorius calm things down a bit here at Headingley, time to wander around the grounds. First, division two.
Ollie Robinson has an unbeaten 95 and Durham maximum batting points at Chester le Street. Hang on in there Callum Parkinson, Durham 259-9.
A sobering read from Daniel Gallan. And a blow to read that AI can write cricketing waffle.
Pretorius is being attended to after he gets hit on the hand from a nasty Ben Cliff ball. Cliff, 23 and with a few England U19 appearances under his belt, has his best bowling by a long way in this innings: six for 37. Somerset 87 for eight.
Look away, and Cliff has another, a searing ball which spits and Leach gets an edge through to Bairstow. Somerset 86 for eight and floundering after a pretty catastrophic first 25 minutes.
Non rhythmic applause as Ben Cliff approaches his hat-trick, but no cigar this time.
But some good news for Somerset and Warwicks, Notts have missed out on a batting point at Hove by ten runs, the hard-grafting Hutton last man out for 60.
And next ball, the dream gets a little smaller. Gregory takes off his gloves and with tiny steps drifts away, lbw and given out with a flourish. Five wickets for Cliff who is on a hat-trick. Somerset 74 for seven.
A huge Headingley roar as James Rew edges behind to Jonny Bairstow, a fourth wicket for young Cliff. Craig Overton cowboys down the pitch to talk tactics with the incoming Lewis Gregory. Somerset 74 for six.
The skies over God’s Own County are dazzling, though there’s a fair wind. I’ve been pointed towards these comments by Somerset’s bowling coach Steve Kirby about the Headingley pitch.
“It’s not the best surface. If I’m completely honest, I thought the pitch was doing considerably more than when we got done against Durham (July 25, Taunton, four-point penalty). I’m bit a disappointed with that and thought it would be a lot, lot better.”
And here come the players.
“There’s enough going on without it being the other end of crazy”
Some thoughtful chat about pitches in the Reporters’ Network quotes last night:
Glamorgan’s Zain ul Hassan, who took four for 26 in Surrey’s 115 all out at The Oval:
“There have been a lot of result pitches around in these final weeks of the season and that’s I think because there are quite a lot of teams either going for the Championship, trying to avoid relegation or get promoted.
“More pitches have been greener and it has been really hard for batting around the country.”
And Hampshire’s Scott Currie at Grace Road:
“The pitch is doing a bit but when you’re at the bottom of the league, I think teams earn the right at home to do what they like with the pitches. As bowlers, we’re not going to complain – I had a season on loan here and I wish the pitches had done as much then.
“We never had a wicket with shaved ends while I was here but credit to Alfonso Thomas, Claude Henderson and the ground staff here for trying to produce wickets that are doing a bit. Some balls have gone up, some have gone down, but no one’s been hit. There’s enough going on without it being the other end of crazy.”
Now bright sunshine as we wheeze past Slaithwaite.
More chaos at Middlesex:
Tuesday’s round-up
A brow-mopping 123 wickets fell on the first day of the penultimate round of matches as the season hurtled towards the autumn trapdoor. It was difficult to know what to make of it, though title-hunting Somerset might repent at leisure the last half of the evening session at Headingley, which they finished on 68 for five. Jonny Bairstow’s busy 79 had hauled Yorkshire to 212, though he was dropped twice. Much rests on the oaken shoulders of Craig Overton.
With clouds building and floodlights on, Nottinghamshire crawled towards a precious batting point at Hove against Sussex’s parsimonious bowlers, something that seemed risible until a ninth-wicket stand of 74 between Brett Hutton and Tom Giles. Hutton’s two-and-a-half-hour 59 was the highest score of the innings.
A career-best six for 26 by Ethan Bamber helped keep Essex down as Warwickshire drove for points at Chelmsford. Essex were whistled out for 134, though that was riches from the ashes of 33 for seven, thanks largely to an unbeaten 61 from the on-loan wicketkeeper George Bell, who has jumped out of the Old Trafford frying pan to find his boots burning again. But Warwickshire wouldn’t have it all their own way as they too collapsed, 151 for nine at stumps, a slender lead of just 17 runs.
Zak Crawley curated the only half-century at Canterbury to bring Kent in touching distance of Lancashire’s 161.
There was a cascade of 20 wickets at the Oval, where neither Glamorgan nor Surrey could reach the heady heights of 140. Matt Fisher limped out of the game with a groin injury.
Ian Holland’s career-best six for 38 dismissed Hampshire for 214 in the Division One battle for the wooden spoon. Ben Brown’s unbeaten 80 saved his side too many blushes. Leicestershire, who are still waiting for the Cricket Regulator to rule on their pitch, shuffled to 148 for seven, thanks to fifty from Hamza Shaikh.
At Chester-le-Street the runs ran freely as India’s Mayank Agarwal blazed Worcestershire’s bowlers around the ground with a dazzling 177. For once, Ben Stokes had to play second fiddle, though his thunderbolt 50 off 40 balls delighted the faithful who had come to wallow in autumn sunshine and the warmth of promotion. Durham were cruising to a full set of batting points before the setting sun spoiled their fun.
Hundreds for Derbyshire’s Ben Aitchison and Wayne Madsen stayed Northamptonshire’s promotion push.
Scores on the doors
Division One
Chelmsford: Essex 134 v Warwickshire 151-9
Grace Road: Leicestershire 148-7 v Hampshire 214
The Oval: Surrey 115 v Glamorgan 132 and 30-0
Hove: Sussex v Nottinghamshire 232-9
Headingley: Yorkshire 212 v Somerset 68-5
Division Two
Chester-le-Street: Durham 437-7 v Worcestershire
Bristol: Gloucestershire v Middlesex 324-9
Canterbury: Kent 151-7 v Lancashire 161
Wantage Road: Northamptonshire 15-0 v Derbyshire 372
Preamble
Good morning! It’s grey travelling across the Pennines, the cloud low, leaves rusty, train, endpoint Scarborough, empty. A bowling alley day yesterday, wickets for fun, special shoes or not, and runs a desperate struggle except for Wayne Madsen, Ben Aitchison and the magnificent Mayank Agarwal. Do join us for more chaos from 10.30 as day two unfolds.