SomerSex - County championship 2021

[Satchmo Distel]

Why is the 50 overs competition taking place at the same time as the Hundred?

[Levin]

Because the ecb doesn't care about it.

[Satchmo Distel]

It's very odd to kill off domestic 50 overs when you've just built a generation around winning a World Cup. Do they think that 50 over skills will just transfer over from T20?

[ursus arctos]

They don't think

They follow the careening shopping trolley model popularised by the PM

[Levin]

Why are Lancashire playing in Cumbria? In a town that was historically in Yorkshire?

[Grimmer]

Why are Lancashire playing in Cumbria? In a town that was historically in Yorkshire?

I don’t think this is the first time either. Bizarrely they suggested back in 2019 that there was nowhere suitable in Lancashire (though they were talking about 4 day games IIRC).

It’s clearly not in Lancashire though even if it’s not that far over the traditional border. Not exactly great from a public transport point of view.

[Levin]

Warwickshire lost in a bit of way today. The run rate was over 10 an over but they lost their last five wickets in a couple of overs.

[ursus arctos]

Hundred for Hildreth as Somerset are on douse to chase down Derbyshire's 298 with six overs remaining

[Satchmo Distel]

Lancashire have also played home games in Cheshire and Merseyside.

[Ray de Galles]

A couple of questions and this seems the best place to put them :

- Does anyone know how crowds have been for the One Day Cup? The Oval sent me four free tickets for Surrey v Northants this Friday as I've had so many T20 and international tickets for there cancelled this summer. I was thinking of taking my boy and a couple of his mates but wanted to assess what the atmosphere will be like given the ECB are trying to strangle the competition in favour of the fucking hundred. The boy will come along anyway but I need to check for his mates' expectations.

- When did Wales Minor Counties become "Wales National County" and isn't that a (pretty insulting) oxymoron?

https://twitter.com/walesncounty/status/1419276747808333824?s=21

[Levin]

I can't help with the first bit.

"As to the name change, it has long been felt that Minor Counties seemed a pejorative term. And we should now be called from 2020 the National Counties Cricket Association.
"Other names were suggested but made us sound a second-rate organisation and this has now been approved by the ECB."

I miss that first round of the NatWest Trophy.

[Southport Zeb]

The Wales National County thing will be because the Minor Counties Championship was renamed the National Counties Cricket Championship. I think the organisation changed its name at the start of 2020, but this year is the first time the competition has actually run under the new name.

[Ray de Galles]

Ah, so it is meant to denote that it's the Wales team that plays in the National County competition rather than Wales is a "National County", thanks both!

[Ray de Galles]

A decent crowd for Surrey v Northants in the end but infuriating weather which meant the boy and I saw fully five and a half overs of play around lunchtime with the match abandoned around 5pm .

Luckily we had a back-up plan and spent most of the day before and after that at the Imperial War Museum.

[Levin]

You know what, the Surrey team that's 114/9 after 36 overs in Cardiff still has a backbone of first choice players.

[Levin]

How many derbies does the Welsh National Counties team have? They're currently playing Shropshire. Lunch on the final day and Shropshire have five wickets left and a lead of 43

[Levin]

That's quite the selection of offenses and punishments for the Foxes

[Levin]

I've not noticed any RLODC games that are day/night. Has that always been the case?

Edit: it's just me being selfish as someone who works mon-fri until 6.

I've also noticed that the final part of the cc has ditched the Thur to Sun pattern.

[Levin]

Finally made it onto the pavilion at the Oval. It's quite nice. I didn't appreciate that there is a slight slope down towards the pavilion.

I don't get the point of coloured kits if one team is going to wear black and the other really really dark blue.

[Levin]

I didn't realise that they did the two balls per innings per thing in the RLODC.

Not a bad crowd for a Tuesday.

[Levin]

Sat in front of people having an actual, you can't say anything any more, conversation. The thing they think you can't say being racist things.

[Ray de Galles]

I've only just discovered (via the BBC London radio commentary on Surrey's game - which features Jeremy Coney btw) that the final games of the One Day Cup are this Thursday, the play-offs are Saturday, the semi-finals next Tuesday and the final next Thursday, at Trent Bridge. That'll be great for crowds.

The ECB really is intent on killing the format England are world champions of in favour of the fucking hundred, aren't they?

[Levin]

Reifer has been good in the field. A catch just now and an excellent stop earlier at point.

I've only just clocked that the groups aren't home and away.

[Levin]

Surrey captain made a mistake with his overs or counted too much on taking 10 wickets.

Leaving Ryan Patel to bowl his only over in the 50th over

[nmrfox]

The ECB really is intent on killing the format England are world champions of in favour of the fucking hundred, aren't they?

Absolutely this. And how much longer before The Hundred transforms back into the T20 Blast, but with just the eight franchises instead of 18 counties. And at which point do the ECB turn round and say, the 8-team T20 format works so well, lets do it with the 50-over format too and as our Test team is now struggling to beat anyone, lets have the 4-day game follow the same lines so that we can become stronger in tests, but the cake needs only be divided 8 ways (10 maybe if perhaps Bristol or Durham or possibly Essex kick up a stink) ?