County Cricket, 2019

[Kevin S]

Top of Division One:

	Team	W	L	D	Bat	Bowl	POINTS
1	ESS	7	1	2	20	27	169
2	SOM	7	2	1	21	27	165
3	YOR	4	2	4	19	28	131

.
Top three's remaining fixtures (there is a break for the T20 Blast)

18-21 August
Kent v Essex
Warks v Somerset
Yorks v Notts

10-13 September
Somerset v Yorks
Warks v Essex

16-19 September
Essex v Surrey
Hants v Somerset
Yorks v Kent

23-26 September
Somerset v Essex
Warks v Yorks

Essex go top for the first time and, having played Yorkshire twice, are in the box seat. Somerset though have home advantage in that potential decider. Yorkshire are not completely out of contention either though they are looking like the Tottenham/Chelsea to Essex's and Somerset's Liverpool and Man City act.

[Kevin S]

Time for the T20 Blast, then.

Fixtures: https://www.thecricketer.com/Topics/..._fixtures.html

List of Sky matches: https://www.skysports.com/watch/cric...tions/domestic

Most of the non-Sky matches are expected to be live streamed by the home county on their respective websites. Selected matches will also be available via radio on BBC Radio 5 Live Sports Extra, including Nottinghamshire v Worcestershire on the opening evening of the tournament.

Format is the same as last year - two groups of nine with the top four from each group going through to quarter finals. Still don't really know why they play 14 games and not 16 in the group.

[Levin]

Are the groups regional or is there some other criteria?

Looking at Surrey's website the only game that's sold out is the game on a Friday (against Glos). All their other games are on Tuesdays and Thursdays/

[Kevin S]

Regional - the groups are called North and South and having had a quick check it looks like they have been unchanged for the last few years. I think the 'missing' two games are just to fit all the matches in, so you get seven home and seven away each. Presumably they rotate which opponents have just the single match each year?

[Kevin S]

Quite the fail from Essex not to have sorted this out...

https://twitter.com/EssexCricket/status/1151798434837520388?s=19

[longeared]

Regional - the groups are called North and South and having had a quick check it looks like they have been unchanged for the last few years. I think the 'missing' two games are just to fit all the matches in, so you get seven home and seven away each. Presumably they rotate which opponents have just the single match each year?

Yorkshire's single match opponents each year are always Worcestershire and Leicestershire. Would guess everyone else has a similar arrangement.

[Kevin S]

Cheers longeared

MID v ESS stream
https://youtu.be/S5Pgi49l7pI

[Kevin S]

Middlesex cruising to the win here.

[Kevin S]

Ooof, with three overs to spare. You can tell Essex prioritise the Championship.

[Jon]

Current T20 champions Worcs beat Notts tonight, with some ease. They play Warks tomorrow at New Road but I don't think the forecast is good.

[Kevin S]

That's one of a positive glut of fixtures today, at various start times:



The Gloucestershire v Glamorgan one is not on Sky so I wonder why it's starting in the afternoon rather than this evening?

[Kevin S]

Ah, it's part of their Cricket Festival - and it's sold out too:
https://www.gloscricket.co.uk/news/f...s-v-glamorgan/

[Sporting]

Lighting issues?

[Kevin S]

Yep, that would explain it. They are playing at the College Ground in Cheltenham:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colleg...nd,_Cheltenham

[Capybara]

Lighting issues?

Possibly. They can bring in temporary floodlighting these days but they play on the school ground in Cheltenham so the school may have had an issue with that.

[Capybara]

Interestingly, I went to a floodlit game as long ago as 1981 in Cheltenham, not at the college ground, nor the town ground which is good enough to have hosted first class cricket ground on a number of occasions, but at the (then) new athletics and rugby ground on the edge of town. It was Gloucestershire against the touring Australians. Quite how the Aussies felt having to play this thing at the end of 'that' tour I don't know, but perhaps it was no surprise that they lost.

[Kevin S]

Atmosphere sounds good.

Live stream (usual fixed cam): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0tmWnJxriao

[Kevin S]

Haha, Billy Root also has squad number 66.

[Kevin S]

Glamorgan in trouble 44/3 after 6.1 but they're going off for rain.

Owen Morgan (not Eoin Morgan) will be coming out to join Billy Root (not Joe Root) when they resume.

[Capybara]

Atmosphere sounds good.

Live stream (usual fixed cam): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0tmWnJxriao

Usually is at Cheltenham. Half the boundary is beer tents.

[Kevin S]

Rain badly affecting the Blast tonight but they've got a 15-over game going at Chelmsford; Essex are going at an improbable nearly-15 an over, 182/3 (12.3).

Delport is 108* (42).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g0GwJs11mPw

[Kevin S]

The rope is brought in a very long way for these matches, mind.

[Kevin S]

Tom Curran completes his three-over allocation with figures of 3-0-63-0 (21.00).

[Kevin S]

226/4 the final tally, so Surrey need 227 from 90 balls, an asking rate of 15.13 per over.

[Sporting]

The rope is brought in a very long way for these matches, mind.

I didn't know this and have to say that I don't like the idea of artificially raising run rates,