As the Test match summer gets under way eyes may well be drawn away from county cricket, but there are still lots of talking points coming out of the last few rounds of the Championship. Here is a roundup of the big news from the county game.
Double trouble
We saw the eighth and ninth double hundreds made in the County Championship this week with Nick Browne making 255 for Essex and Joe Denly making 206* for Kent. There have been five rounds of Championship matches and we already have more than half the number of double hundreds that were scored throughout the whole of 2015. Last year there were 16 scores of 200 or more during the season, if this year continues as it has so far that number will be surpassed by a distance. We are yet to have a triple hundred in 2016 but the season is still young, maybe we should be dreaming of someone making 400.
D’Oliveira Domination
Going into this season Brett D’Olivera had never made a first-class fifty and he had scored 410 runs in 18 matches. This season he has made 598 runs with three hundreds (and almost a fourth, he was dismissed on 99 against Sussex). In amongst those runs was a score of 202 not out against Glamorgan that was almost faultless. When D’Oliviera made it to a double hundred he also made history – he became the last in the line of the first grandfather, father and son to all make a score of more than 200 in first-class cricket. This is already his best ever season and he has only played seven times.
Essex Promotion Push
With only one team going up to Division 1 of the County Championship this year there is even more pressure to get a decent start to the season, and Glamorgan’s next opponents have done just that. Essex are currently 18 points clear at the top of the table and the only team with two wins so far this year. They were aided in the early part of the season with runs from Alastair Cook who has now left them to pursuit 10,000 Test match runs for England but he isn’t the only man in the runs. Tom Westley has 650, including a ton against the touring Sri Lankans, to lead the run scoring charts for this year. Just behind him at second place on the list is Nick Browne with 628 runs so far, including that massive 255.
Essex also have the two men at the top of the first-class wicket taking lists with Graham Napier and Jamie Porter the leading bowlers of the season so far. It will be a tough ask for Glamorgan in the game starting on Sunday.
Sparsity of spin
The rule change that has seen visiting sides being given the option to bowl first if they wish has certainly made a big difference to the cricket that we have seen early season. In the past we saw plenty of green seamers as sides gambled that they would win the toss and get to bowl the opposition out cheaply. The new rule was an attempt to prevent that and allow spinners to have a say in the game throughout the season, not just in August when the square had dried out enough to allow turn.
So far we have seen little evidence that spinners are having more impact, with Lancashire’s Simon Kerrigan the leading spinner in the country but he is the 21st highest wicket taker in first-class cricket. It is too early to declare the experiment a failure, but it certainly hasn’t given immediate results.
Blast Off
After six weeks of four day cricket the NatWest T20 Blast arrives tonight, although Glamorgan don’t have a game until next week. There are some really exciting players that will be on show during the tournament with World T20 winners Chris Gayle, Dwayne Bravo and former Glamorgan man Darren Sammy amongst them. For Glamorgan they have the arrival of Shaun Tait and his quick stuff to look forward to but he won’t arrive for a few weeks yet. An enigmatic tweet from South African superstar Dale Steyn about fishing opportunities in Glamorgan has ramped up the speculation that he would be with the team for the early weeks of the season, but the announcement wasn’t made until today. It is a hugely exciting signing of a massive name in cricket. When Dale does arrive and wants to go fishing I know a couple of lovely spots on the River Tawe in the Swansea Valley that I would happily take him too. I will even buy the bait.