Championship Climax
With two rounds of fixtures to go, Nottinghamshire lead the County Championship Division One, by 22 points from Somerset, despite losing in their last fixture, away to the holders Durham.
If they can beat Yorkshire this week, they will almost certainly be crowned as County Champions for 2010.
Nottinghamshire will be pleased to return to Trent Bridge today, where they have won five out of seven 4-Day matches this season. My fear for Nottinghamshire, is that they may have already peaked this season, and are running out of gas in the home straight, like the Queen Mother’s infamous racehorse Devon Loch in the 1956 Grand National, and former British Marathon runner Jim Peters, who collapsed, severely dehydrated, just before the finishing line at the 1954 Commonwealth Games in Vancouver, with a 5km lead.
Nottinghamshire lost an important one day game on Sunday (when they should have advanced to the CB40 semi-finals) immediately after their disappointing Championship defeat at Durham, and are in danger of letting a potentially wonderful season end in massive disappointment, having already lost in the Friends Provident T20 in the semi final on Finals Day last month.
Yorkshire (in 3rd place) go to Trent Bridge with all to play for, because if they win, they will close the gap on the leaders and become possible County Champions themselves, unless Somerset win their last two fixtures, at home to Lancashire this week, and away to Durham next week. Yorkshire would be worthy Championship winners, as they have played the majority of the season without an overseas player and have a significant number of players in their team born and raised in ‘the broad acres’ of ‘God’s country’. They are a beacon of light in a game dominated by too many teams whose expensive recruitments have added to an increasing lack of identity(for players and followers) in modern County Cricket.
I would love to see one of my former counties, Somerset, win the County Championship for the first time in their long history, but the weather in the North East of England may defeat them next week, assuming they can beat Lancashire at Taunton to close the gap on Nottinghamshire.
It promises to be another wonderful climax to the County season.
Can Somerset find the necesaary ‘kick’ for a sprint finish if Nottinghamshire falter, or will Yorkshire come up on the rails?
