3 hours ago
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“Top o’ the mornin’ to ya Tanya!” Hello Tim Maitland.
”I’ve finally settled on my retirement home: the place where I can happily continue to revert towards the drooling, incoherent, free-defecating mess that I was when I entered this world. However, I might need your help pooling the immense mental resources that exist BTL on this blog to complete the purchase, because it’s currently occupied by the Northamptonshire Supporter’s Club.
”I’m sure they can be rehomed, given the right incentives, because, if there’s nothing two nightmare spells of Trumpism has taught me, it’s that everything is for sale. Besides a bijou, half-timbered, mock Tudor residence that would allow me to literally roll out of bed at 10-55 to the sound of leather on second division willow is too good to miss out on, isn’t it? The lovely wife (American) is more than happy to use the ground floor on matchdays to offer succour to spectators, indeed she’d like your opinion on whether cricket fans would stump up for US-style, still lemonade (I told her they will if you lace it with enough vodka) and homemade gelatos.
She might need to stock up on the odd sausage roll and scotch egg too, don’t you think? Besides all that, does anyone know what the going rate would be for the finest building in first class cricket?”
Tim, unfortunately I can’t attach your photo, but I would very happily drink still lemonade with ice and perhaps a cinnamon bun for elevenses?
Friday's round-up
Somerset’s James Rew was a shot of ginger on a rainy Championship day. He purred the last ball of the evening to the rope with a perfect high elbow, to finish unbeaten on 77. With innings of 64, 122 and 48 already this season, Rew’s average is 100 – numbers to lighten an England selector’s step. Thirteen wickets fell around him, with Jake Lehmann (76), who has stepped into James Vince’s boots, again top-scoring for Hampshire. There were three wickets each for Lewis Gregory and Craig Overton.
Essex had time before the deluge to reduce Warwickshire to 113 for seven – the pinpoint Jamie Porter leading the way with four for 36. Sam Hain, with 44, was the rock around which the other Warwickshire players failed to stick. There was a first Essex wicket for Zaman Akhter, a Saca (South Asian Cricket Academy) graduate who moved to Chelmsford from Bristol in the great winter raid on Gloucestershire’s bowling stocks.
Akhter’s old club suffered a mid-order malfunction against Lancashire. Ben Charlesworth and Ollie Price had lifted Gloucestershire to a respectable 80 for one, after Cameron Bancroft was dopily run out for six. But George Balderson (four for 27) then took three for five before and after lunch, and when Graeme van Buuren was caught for a three-ball duck, the innings was in disarray. Lancashire had their own problems when Ajeet Singh Dale limped off the field with a hamstring injury and was replaced by Ollie Sutton, summoned from a second XI match in Leicestershire.
Middlesex made a plucky recovery against Northamptonshire on a bouncy Wantage Road pitch from the depths of 20 for three after winning the toss and choosing to bat. Half-centuries from Leus Du Plooy and Ben Geddes and an unbeaten seventh-wicket stand of 120 between Zafar Gohar and Joe Cracknell brightened the scoreboard, before bad light stopped play.
Scores on the doors
DIVISION ONE
Southampton: Hampshire 238 v Somerset 154-3
Edgbaston: Warwickshire 113-7 v Essex
DIVISION TWO
Bristol: Gloucestershire 124-6 v Lancashire
Northampton: Northants v Middlesex 284-6
Preamble
Hello! Happy Saturday morning, may your park run have been fruitful and your coffee tasty. Four games in progress this round, with James Rew’s selectorial nudge the highlight of day one. Play starts at 11am, do pull up a seat.
