1. If it’s Monday, it’s oval
The one-day cup is already halfway through the Round Robin stage, with the top three in each group that qualifies for the knockout competitions that come in just 10 days.
Do you know without peeping how your province is doing? Compact competitions are often easier to follow than those that grow or stop over the calendar and start-I look at your t20 blast but, despite the chronic sub-report of the one-day cup, is it possible to define a story? Competitions are planned every day – except the days that they are not, like last Saturday, this Saturday and next (Bank Holiday) Monday – and there are no defined game week, after which you can look at the table, show up the balance and consider what will come.
As with much different in cricket, it can all be done better for fans, players and sponsors. And they are the constituencies that really matter, right?
2. Taylor Fits White-Ball Cricket
Gloucestershire Top Group A with the only 100% record in the country, which is especially impressive, since they are one of the provinces along the center of their competition campaign that have played five games. An unlikely combination of results would be needed to refuse a lock in the knockouts, but the smart structure of eliminations, Byes and home benefits means that there is still a lot to play for once, or someone else, goes to the next phase.
If to underline my point above, how many non-gloucestershire fans can call their leader? A hint: he also held up last year’s blast trophy. The name you are looking for is Jack Taylor.
Taylor, a batter who bowls, came to the crease at worcester after oliver price’s 66 and immediatry loost Ben Charlesworth After His Handy 50. Not a crisis but, with 80 needed off 17 overs, four down, worn in a winning or winne siffe leging legs or winniff legiff legniff legniff legiff legs Taylor put together for half a century and sent his team home in the company of colleague -old Pro Graeme van Buuren.
In the brave new world that always floats just further than understanding managers who look at the product and its content, there might not be a place for people like Taylor and Van Buuren. They have never played senior international cricket and will probably never do that. They will be excess about the requirements for the PowerPoints that blind the technical brittle that are the pipers who are about to call the domestic cricket melody with their franchise richness. Ask a fan if these players should have a place in the English game, 2027 and I suspect that the answer will be quite different.
3. Orr finally strikes gold
Professional sport is mainly the thing of a young person, a brutal seven of winners and losers – no wonder some people find it a difficult way to follow. Ali Orr was one of the Sussex youngsters who got a chance in those strange Covid -Summer and in this column mentioned in 2021 as a clear prospect together with Tom Haines, Aaron Thomason, Danial Ibrahim, Jack Carson, Henry Crocombe and Jamie Atkins. Injury, a move to Hampshire and navigating changes and setbacks meant that the last of his seven centuries came in May 2024.
He ended that bald spell with a 131 against Leicestershire. ORR and his captain Nick Gubbins have compiled an opening position of 202, making the victory a formality and Hampshire kept well placed in the top three. ORR is still only 24 and that knock can be the start of his second arrival of a nice batter.
4. Milnes Marmalises Middlesex
Group B is tighter, with five provinces with a decent scream of qualifying and even sixth placed Durham not yet out. Yorkshire, with imam-ul-haq back after he missed the defeat against Somerset in York, traveled to Radlett to play Middlesex in honor of leading the rankings after five games.
Although the productive Pakistani achieved an unbeaten half a century, the game was won by the Bowlers of Yorkshire, who had the home team five for three and then 129 all the way out, done the game in 58 overs. The damage was inflicted by the always reliable Ben “Betsy” coad (three for 26 in his 10 overs) and Matt Milnes (four for 29 of his eight).
Both seamers are 31 and know their games inside out, making them an ideal pair for a competition like this. Milnes, who returns to Kent at the end of the summer after three years, will be motivated to leave with a trophy. You wouldn’t bet against it.
5. Carson drives Sussex home
The hard battle between Sussex and Lancashire A sun-drenched Hove underlined how nice a size 50-over cricket can be. It was a competition that ebbed and flowed before Carson became the late hero.
The openers of Lancashire ping a little friendly bowling to the border in the PowerPlay, Michael Jones’s 82 off 77 the highlight, before Sussex’s Spinners, Carson and Archie Lenham withdrew things. Some pyrotechnics from Harry Singh brought Lancashire to 338 to seven, a score that they must have felt confident in defending.
On 241 for one after 33 overs, that trust had evaporated as ice cream fell on the promenade pavement, but the impressive Araav Shetty Snared Tom Clark for a brilliant 139, then fynn Hudson-Pentice and John Simpson took it in short order and when Tom Haines 90 went out of nine, the home side of the home side, the home of the home of the home of the home of the home of the home of the home of the home of the home of the home from the Nine, the home side, the home side of the Nine, the home side, the home side of the Nine, the Nine. Nine, 54 from Nine, 54 from Nine Out.
Calm heads were required and few were clearer in their thinking than Carson, who turned into a peak Michael Bevan, finished things with good running and two sixes just when his team needed them. The result was still doubted until the third ball of the last one was cut by No. 11 Sean Hean, giving Sussex a home victory. It’s not a bad game, right?
6. Lintott runs on time
To show that it was not a coincidence, Somerset and Warwickshire served a cracker in Taunton two days later.
Tom Lammonby noted a round 100, somewhat surprisingly his first in Witte Ball Cricket, before the Rew Brothers inevitably stepped into the act with 81 (James) and 41 (Thomas). But from 218 for three with more than 10 overs, a target of only 310 Warwickshire gave a chance that they might not have expected.
Visitors developed the habit of losing wickets at a bad moment, the top seven that all came in, but nobody is at the top of Rob Yates’s 47. Cue Jake Lintott, back in his hometown and at no. 8 with 67 needed with a little more than one run. He grabbed 50 of them in the company of Wicketkeeper Kai Smith and when he was ready, the game was too.
Both parties are locked in second and third place on 12 points, both playing their last group matches at home. If it goes to the wire, the sound is large.
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