As the County Championship took its first week off this summer, the 50-over One-Day Cup kicked off alongside the continuing T20 Blast. Gloucestershire have made a terrible start to their title defence, losing all three fixtures so far. Mind you, they should have beaten Somerset in their first match, but Jamie Overton and Tim Groenewald produced a tenth wicket stand of 65 to clinch an unlikely win with three balls to spare.
Somerset top the South Group with Essex and Glamorgan but all eyes this week have been on Nottinghamshire and their opening partnership of Michael Lumb and Riki Wessels. All three of their stands reached three figures, including an astonishing 342 against Northants. It broke the old Dravid/Ganguly List A record in England, while the county total of 445-8 is the second highest anywhere in the world. Even more remarkable was that Northants fell only 20 runs short, and the aggregate of 870 was a mere two behind the world record. Lumb made 184, Wessels 146 but perhaps both were outdone by the opponents’ Rory Kleinveldt. Having to bat with a runner, he had to go for boundaries. Thumping ten 4s and nine 6s, he amassed 128 from 63 balls before falling five overs from home.
Lumb made 133 in the Warwickshire game, and both he and Wessels made fifties in their twenty-over match for good measure. For all the runs racked up by Notts, their net run rate is inferior to Derbyshire’s. Ben Slater (against Durham) and Hamish Rutherford (vs Worcestershire) scored centuries while Shiv Thakor, deprived of batting opportunites, has again been amongst the wickets.
Elsewhere, Hain, Bell and Trott were in the runs for Warwickshire, and Johann Myburgh (Somerset), Kevin O’Brien (Leicestershire) and Jesse Ryder (Essex) were also consistently high in their scoring. It certainly wasn’t a week for bowlers, but then modern one-day cricket is fundamentally designed for batsmen: all fielding restrictions, big blades and short boundaries.
Twenty20 is even worse, but at least there were opportunities for experienced Aussie seamers Clint McKay and Michael Hogan to work their magic. Northants currently boast the only 100% record in this year’s Blast while Yorkshire are in the unenviable position of losing all three games played to date. While the big signings like Gayle, Bravo, McCullum, Afridi, Jayawardene et al undoubtedly shift tickets, the top performers on the pitch thus far are home-growners like Daniel Bell-Drummond of Kent, Joe Leach from Worcestershire and Leicestershire’s Ben Raine. Time will tell whether the picture changes as the competition progresses.
Team of the Week: Lumb (Not), Wessels (Not), K O’Brien (Lei), Westley (Ess), Hain (War), Buttler (Lan +), Thakor (Der), Dawson (Ham), Howell (Glo), McKay (Lei), Hogan (Gla)
