Glamorgan were out of action for the opening round of fixtures, but the Specsavers County Championship began last week. Many of the games affected by rain, with Nottinghamshire and Essex the week’s only winners.
Division One
Newly-promoted Surrey began their top tier campaign with a defeat, as Nottinghamshire survived a second innings scare to win by three wickets at Trent Bridge.
After amassing 446 in their first innings thanks to Stephen Mullaney’s knock of 113, Notts made the visitors follow-on.
Surrey’s 226 saw Notts seamers Jackson Bird and Harry Gurney rip through the top order and Brett Hutton took the prize scalp of Kumar Sangakkara.
The second Surrey innings was more competitive. They set Notts 172 to win by compiling 389, with Arun Harinath making 137.
But Notts got over the line on Day 4 – despite a flurry of wickets from Tom Curran and Ravi Rampaul – thanks in no small part to Greg’s Smith determined half-century.
After Warwickshire captain Ian Bell elected to bowl in their clash with Hampshire – rendering the toss useless – the Bears reduced the hosts to 202 at the Ageas Bowl.
But with rain around in Southampton, a result never looked likely, despite Bell making 174 in Warwickshire’s total of 360. A draw was called in the game’s third innings, with Hampshire on 185/5.
At Chester-le-Street, rain affected Durham’s match against Somerset. Opener Keaton Jennings made two hundreds in the match and Graham Onions took 4/62 in Somerset’s reply of 179, but rain was the eventual winner and the visitors escaped with a draw.
Division Two
Essex got their Division Two season off to the best possible start, beating Gloucestershire by 10 wickets at Chelmsford. Despite winning the toss and electing to bat – and making 262 with skipper Gareth Roderick finishing unbeaten on 88 – Gloucestershire found themselves with a first innings deficit.
Essex replied with 383 thanks to hundreds from England captain Alastair Cook and England hopeful Tom Westley.
Gloucestershire’s second innings score of 215 was never going to be enough and Essex openers Cook and Nick Browne were untroubled in knocking off the target of 94.
In the other two matches, only one innings was possible due to the weather. Worcestershire’s clash against Kent was washed out without a ball being bowled at New Road due to persistent rain.
Meanwhile, Ben Duckett was the star of Northamptonshire’s game versus Sussex. The 21-year-old batsman made a mammoth 282 not out in Northants’ total of 481/7, before the rain came and the match was eventually called a draw.