Key events
Raf runs her eye over England’s summer, and a first captaincy gig for Charlie Dean.
Ali’s trip to Worcester to see Ben Stokes bowl.
Friday’s round-up
The vacancy sign over one England openers slot continues to swing. The selectors fancy James Rew, but he keeps wicket and bats in the middle order for Somerset. How to square the circle? Friday’s answer was Rew opening for Somerset for the first time in his first-class career. It was a short-lived experiment, Rew lasting just seven balls before being bowled for four.
Around Rew there were runs for young Josh Thomas (71) and Tom Lammonby (45) before Glamorgan debutant Tom Norton picked the first of three wickets. Tom Abell’s 86 propped up the rest of the innings.
Dan Worrall slipped into his Surrey bowling boots for the first time this spring and soon dismissed Nottinghamshire’s openers. He pocketed another wicket when Ben Duckett (42) fended at a lifter, and another two in a mini Notts collapse of four for five. Joe Clarke’s unbeaten 129, his second century of a rich early season, kept Notts in the match.
Middlesex’s skilled young seam attack made Lancashire work hard for their runs, Keaton Jennings (67), was, as ever, the glue. James Anderson then reduced Middlesex to 38 for two as the clouds closed in.
Jack White (four for 49) and his band of Yorkshire right-arm seamers ruined Warwickshire, a string of single digit scores strung together by 57 from Sam Hain. Harry Brook, in his first innings of the summer, got off the mark with an outrageously dismissive cover drive.
Half-centuries for Jake Lehmann and Ben Brown hauled Hampshire towards near respectability against Essex. A marauding Sam Cook (three for 56) took out the top order and Wiaan Mulder finished things off.
Sussex kept Leicestershire in sight, despite dropping six catches. Jack Carson pocketed four wickets and the impressive Ollie Robinson three.
An unbeaten 91 from Caleb Jewell topped a morale-boosting day for Derbyshire against Northamptonshire.
Scores on the doors
DIVISION ONE
Chelmsford: Essex 51-2 v Hampshire 235
Sophia Gardens: Glamorgan v Somerset 337-9
Trent Bridge: Nottinghamshire 317-7 v Surrey
Hove: Sussex 3-0 v Leicestershire 328
Edgbaston: Warwickshire 147 v Yorkshire 110-4
DIVISION TWO
The County Ground: Derbyshire 342-3 v Northamptonshire
Bristol: Gloucestershire 325 v Kent 1-0
Old Trafford: Lancashire 201 v Middlesex 38-2
New Road: Worcestershire 209-7 v Durham
Preamble
Good morning! And welcome to a reassuringly old fashioned Manchester spring day, slightly damp, slightly overcast, slightly muggy at the seams.
It was a day mostly for bowlers yesterday, and we wait to see if Jimmy Anderson can inflict more pain on Middlesex, how Kent fare against Gloucestershire, Essex against Hampshire and Glamorgan against Big Craig and co. It’s already a tight tussle at Trent Bridge, and Harry Brook proved highly entertaining last evening at Edgbaston in the gloom. And all eyes to New Road, where Ben Stokes will go into bat at the ground where he blasted 161 off 88 balls four years ago.
It all starts at 11am, do join us!
