Announcement

Collapse
No announcement yet.

County Cricket 2011

Collapse
X
 
  • Filter
  • Time
  • Show
Clear All
new posts

    County Cricket 2011

    Disbelief among my cricket-watching Lancastrian mates, so far, that this has finally happened. And in a climax like that, too, Warwickshire forcing Hampshire to follow on with a day to go but then finding it impossible to finish them off.

    Playing on the coast, not at Old Trafford (where it rains every other day) can't be coincidental to their long-awaited success this season. Quite a few of my mates are saying the club shouldn't go back to Old Trafford, but that's probably heresy for the actual members.

    Comment


      County Cricket 2011

      Never going to happen, what with the development of Old Trafford under way. Never going to happen anyway, really.

      Comment


        County Cricket 2011

        Just fantastic - this is genuinely a really big day for me and for thousands of Lancashire supporters who have spent a lifetime watching highly regarded squads underachieve.

        For this motley crew to seal it is truly amazing. I am not ashamed to say - although a little embarrassed to - that I made my fears for the season public earlier in this thread. Avoiding relegation would have been a bonus. We had a lousy batting order who, in honesty, haven't been in any way convincing throughout the season yet they saw us through when it mattered.

        But those bowlers. And that capatin. There is nobody connected with the game who could find much wrong with Glenn Chapple as captain of a winning side.

        And Yorkshire imploding, too. Happy days.

        Comment


          County Cricket 2011

          Lancashire's points total in the end is higher than any other champion's for 8 years since Sussex in 2003. And it needed to be - Warwickshire's points total this year would have won them 4 out of those intervening championships. It's been a fantastic season for both sides.

          Comment


            County Cricket 2011

            Nice summing up on events by David Hopps in The Guardian's County cricket - as it happened section online this evening.

            6.34pm: Lancashire's last outright championship win, in 1934, came at a time of worldwide depression, observes David Hopps. Now they have added another one 77 years later as the world again struggles to avoid financial chaos. There is something about a Great Depression that cheers up Lancashire. That and the chance to play their home games on an outground at Aigburth.

            Lancashire are the side that followers of other counties can never quite remember. The only international in the ranks of the Red Rose as they defeated Somerset by eight wickets with five overs to spare was Glen Chapple, who won a solitary ODI cap against Ireland five years ago.

            Chapple was 37 and playing with a strained hamstring that would have sidelined lesser men. The rest of Lancashire's have short, traditional English names: Smith, Brown, Croft, Hogg. They are players who have never known stardom and perhaps never will. They seem almost interchangeable. But tonight they are identified by an achievement that few expected – some famous Lancastrians of another era included.

            In 1934, Lancashire's cotton industry was showing signs of decline and the Manchester Guardian was financially stricken. Sir Neville Cardus wrote early that season: "None of us cares twopence about the Championship, certainly not this year, when it is obvious Lancashire cannot possibly win it!" Cardus, to his delight, was proved wrong as Lancashire took the title against Surrey at The Oval.

            Expectations were not much higher this year in an era of instant communications that is ideally suited to the gradual climax of the final day of a championship season. But under Moores's guidance, Lancashire have become efficient, orderly and have achieved every inch of their potential.

            For the second successive season, the championship climax was a thrilling one, the story unfolding over hours: on TV and radio commentary, on Twitter, and on this very blog. Would Cardus have taken to blogging? Surely he would have enjoyed the freedom to switch from cricket to music in mid-sentence.

            Sky TV were stuck with Warwickshire, stymied at the last by stout, day-long blocking by Hampshire on a docile Rose Bowl pitch. How we yearned for them to switch to Taunton, but they dared not follow the news, fearing a lack of camera angles and commentators, coverage unfit for the HD age. LD would have sufficed.

            BBC Radio were at Taunton, where Vic Marks's dulcet tones calmed Lancashire's nerves. On Twitter we awaited a tweet from Kevin Pietersen that never came, heralding Peter Moores as the finest coach in the county game, a coach who had kept his dignity when Pietersen rubbished his reputation and cost him his England job and whose success would now be warmly received. On this blog, comments came from Shanghai, Ottawa and other far-flung places. One Lancashire fan admitted to being on his "fourth vodka and tonic" in no time at all, another railed at a 5pm meeting that meant he would miss the final moment. In more ways than ever, people caught that moment. The county championship is not quite dead yet.

            Comment


              County Cricket 2011

              Rogin, veranda chair fan wrote:
              Lancashire's points total in the end is higher than any other champion's for 8 years since Sussex in 2003.
              Is that adjusted? I know they changed the method they awarded points for the 2010 season.

              Comment


                County Cricket 2011

                They have tinkered a bit with the points system, but I think even with recalculating, Lancashire's 10 wins in 2011 (and Warwickshire's 9) would have put both comfortably ahead of some other recent champions - Notts only won 7 games last year, for example.

                Comment


                  County Cricket 2011

                  We had a lousy batting order who, in honesty, haven't been in any way convincing throughout the season yet they saw us through when it mattered.
                  In a way that can be an advantage if the bowling is good enough - no tricky declaration decisions.

                  Comment


                    County Cricket 2011

                    Congrats to Lancs, Im a bit shocked that its been so long since their lasy win. The first ever first class game I went to was Lancs v Essex in the JPL back in the early 70s. Clive Lloyd, Frank Hayes, Barry Wood, David LLoyd, Faroukh Engineer, Peter Lee, John Lever etc and they never won it!

                    Theres always next year for us I suppose. At least theres gonna be a chance of seeing Durham in London next year.

                    Comment

                    Working...
                    X