Championship Chinwag: Labuschagne's hand scare, intruders at Derby and a postage problem

SAM MORSHEAD, HUW TURBERVILL, NICK FRIEND, JAMES COYNE, ELIZABETH BOTCHERBY, SAM DALLING and OSCAR RATCLIFFE reflect on events on and off the field during the fourth round of County Championship matches

Labuschagne panic

Marnus Labuschagne suffered a freak injury scare falling over some steps before he’d even reached the outfield for the first time as a Glamorgan player in 2021.

Australian Labuschagne was back in the Glamorgan side after arriving in Cardiff at the start of the week, but he suffered a hand problem when he fell entering the field before play started against Kent on Thursday.

The third best Test batsman in the world missed part of the afternoon session while his hand was assessed. He did return to the field as Kent were bowled out for just 138, sporting strapping on his left hand. SM

The flip-flopped photographer

While the trio of reporters in attendance for day one of Yorkshire v Northamptonshire spent most of the day moaning about the Headingley cold, one man was immune to the unpleasant weather.

Northamptonshire-based photographer Peter, a biomedical scientist by trade, strode around the empty ground in a pair of flip-flops, transitioning from pitchside to the press box without complaint.

This wasn’t a bet, nor an unfortunate wardrobe malfunction, but something he has done since the 2010-11 Ashes in Australia, where exposed toes are a la mode at the cricket. In football, there’s the old adage “can they do it on a cold rainy night in Stoke?” Well, after surviving Thursday, I’m betting Peter can. EB

^{Marnus Labuschagne is back with Glamorgan}

Don’t Raine on Ben’s parade

Scouring the scorecards of the Championship’s first three rounds only to see mountains of runs and a proliferation of draws, you’d be forgiven for wondering whether it really is spring at all and not high summer. But then comes a damp day at Chester-le-Street, a sporting deck and a rampant home attack…

At 30 for 8 on day one, Warwickshire generously provided a sense of normality resuming. This is what county cricket in April once was. One bowler even had figures of 5 for 2, but oddly it wasn’t Chris Rushworth.

Amongst an attack comprising of the 527-wicket Durham legend, England’s Mark Wood and the prodigiously rapid Brydon Carse, seamer Ben Raine can seem something of an undercard. But on day one the bowling allrounder, who returned to Durham from Leicestershire at the end of the 2018 season, upstaged his feted attack-mates to finish with figures of 5 for 9 as the Bears were bowled out for 87. 

Raine rates Rushworth as “unbelievable”, but on the first day of this contest, bowling wicket-to-wicket with a bit of nibble, it was the 29-year-old who turned in the sort of performance that established his teammate’s legend. OR

Postage gone packing

Someone at the ECB accreditation office has miscalculated the price of postage, and it's led to a raft of journos making trips to the post office to retrieve their passes for the 2021 campaign.

The lanyards have been steadily arriving in letterboxes over the past week - they typically grant writers and broadcasters entry to county grounds across the country - but for some, Chinwag has been made aware of around eight so far, instead of accreditation, a polite Royal Mail request for an extra £1.50 has been falling through the door.

And as you can imagine, the press pack are enjoying a good old grumble about it, miserly bunch that we are. SM

A Luke-warm Wells-come

Luke Wells enjoyed a middling return to Hove sweet home (as was). Now in the colours of Lancashire, he made 28 and 12 against the club he was associated with for 20 years or so, Sussex.

He was known as ‘the most sledged batsman in Britain’ when he was with the Sharks. He says he was never sure why he attracted such unwanted attention, but he used it as motivation when batting. Despite standing on the boundary in an eerily quiet Hove, I didn’t hear a lot aimed at him from his former team-mates when he came out to bat, although apparently he’d dished a bit out himself on day one, with Dane Vilas also having lots to say.

That Sussex were on top only to be unable to sustain it and ultimately lose was a repeat of the match against Yorkshire the week before, but they are a young side and will learn. HT

COUNTY CHAMPIONSHIP TEAM OF THE WEEK: Do you agree with our selection?

It’s been a while for Nottinghamshire 

Thirty four months; 149 weeks; 1043 days: however you spin it, it’s been a long time since Nottinghamshire last won a first-class game. Last week’s Stuart Broad-inspired 310-run dismantling of Derbyshire broke quite the hoodoo for the Trent Bridge based outfit. 

Nottinghamshire’s previous Championship win came back in 2018, when they beat Essex by 301 runs on 23 June. You’d be hard pushed to find a starker contrast in fortunes between two counties in the intervening period: since that day, Tom Westley’s side have come out on top in 19 first-class contests and lost only once on their home patch, winning the Championship and the Bob Willis Trophy in the process.

A lot has changed for Nottinghamshire in the interim. Only two players remain in the Notts XI from their last Championship victory: keeper Tom Moores and seamer Luke Fletcher. Meanwhile four of the side from that Chelmsford win currently ply their trade at other counties: Jake Libby, Riki Wessels (both at Worcestershire), Billy Root (at Glamorgan) and Matt Milnes (at Kent). 

Some things, however, remain the same: the leading wicket-taker in both of Nottinghamshire’s most recent victories, the ever-reliable Fletcher, with match figures of 6 for 65 against Essex and 7 for 60 at Derby, three seasons later. This time he will be hoping that the wait to turn in another match-winning Championship performance isn’t quite so long. 

For Notts, though, the capacity for celebration has been limited. The club, like the other 17 counties, all their players and the ECB, have been on radio silence across social media as part of a boycott against online abuse. By the time the official accounts shout about the result on Tuesday, minds will be completely trained to the next fixture, against Essex. OR

^{Nottinghamshire won a first-class game for the first time in 1,043 days}

Anyone can beat anyone in this league…

If you subscribe to the theory that a competition’s unpredictability is a marker of its quality, then this was the round that proved that the County Championship – contrary to some reports – is, in fact, ‘elite sport’. 

In a week, winless Surrey went from losing by 10 wickets to Middlesex to turning over group leaders Hampshire by an innings in three days flat. Meanwhile Durham, also without a win this term, trounced a Warwickshire side who not even defending champions Essex were able to vanquish, also by an innings and with a day to spare.

Good thing cricket punters aren’t as enamoured with betting accumulators as their footballing counterparts. OR

The Stanlake conundrum

Billy Stanlake touched down in England a week or so ago. He would have spent the long-haul flight dreaming of making a belated County Championship debut for Derbyshire last Thursday. Twice before the Australian quick has had county cricket stints lined up, only for his body to say no. 

As it transpired, he has a little longer to wait. You see the County Championship – unlike the T20 Blast and the Rachel Heyhoe-Flint Trophy but in the same bracket as football's Premier League – is not classified as elite sport in England when it comes to special exemption for its competitors, meaning Stanlake was not permitted to leave his mandatory 10-day self-isolation to feature in what ended up being a chastening defeat to Nottinghamshire. 

It was an honest error by his county who had, fairly, assumed that the red-ball competition would be captured by the exemptions. 

However, what will rankle slightly is that Michael Neser and Marnus Labuschagne were available for Glamorgan duty, despite not touching down in the UK from Australia until after Stanlake.  

Neser, a bowling allrounder, was afforded extra recovery time but Labuschagne was, to no one’s surprise, raring to go.  As it was, his contribution was minimal: 11 in the first dig before Darren Stevens trapped him LBW. His services were not required in the second, openers Joe Cooke and David Lloyd securing a 10-wicket victory over Kent.  

But there is something uneasy about different rules applying within the same competition. The ECB cannot do anything about the law, however much of an ass it might be. Could they, however, have stepped in to prevent Labuschagne playing, irrespective of Glamorgan being able to square his participation under Welsh regulations?

That the world’s best want to play county cricket is heartwarming, but for the integrity of the tournament, there must be parity between the sides. And on this occasion, that should have meant Labuschagne sitting it out. SD

^{Billy Stanlake is still waiting for his Derbyshire debut}

Durable Derby

It’s doubtful many other county HQs have had such a varied existence as the County Ground at Derby.

In long distant days this was called the Racecourse Ground for a reason, besides from being the home of Derby County, hosting England at football and an FA Cup final replay. The cricket pitches faced north-south, then switched east-west, and are now north-south again after complaints of sun stopping play.

David Griffin, the club heritage officer and oracle of all things Derbyshire CCC, pointed out to me a now invisible line on the outfield where horse races finished, somewhere between what is now the Air IT Elite Performance Centre and the Incora Pavilion.

When Griffin interviewed the late Tony Pope, a storied Derbyshire club cricketer, a few years ago for a club heritage project, Pope recalled being present as a young boy at a race before the Second World War, and seeing a jockey thrown off his horse and impaled on the railings that stood between the crowd and the racecourse. A sobering thought at this time when no cricket spectators are allowed in at all – though two members of the public did try to sneak in on the second day of the Championship match against Nottinghamshire until they were spotted by club staff (I’m sure Derby hasn’t been alone in that regard).

And it’s the presence of the neighbouring Travelodge hotel, which went up 20 winters ago and earned the county a useful windfall of £675,000, which has ensured Derby’s status as a biosecure venue during the Covid-19 pandemic.

The hotel and ground hosted England Women and touring international teams last year, and will accommodate Pakistan again when they come over in July for their limited-overs series.

Sadly it meant Derbyshire were robbed of playing on their home ground in 2020, which was the 150th anniversary of the club’s foundation, so the return of fans from May 17 onwards cannot come soon enough.

Last season was the first that Derbyshire played all their first-team games away from Derby since 1976, when there was a dispute with the city council, who own part of the ground.

At least back then Derbyshire were able to play on their own outgrounds. Griffin has rich memories of travelling around to Ilkeston, Chesterfield, Burton-upon-Trent and Buxton in that parched summer of ’76. It’s a summer otherwise indelibly linked with Michael Holding and the most beautiful run-up in cricket history – and it just so happens he would become a Derbyshire legend too. JC 

45 and still taking wickets

The evergreen 45-year-old Darren Steven became the oldest bowler to take a County Championship wicket on his birthday since Jim Sims of Middlesex against Northamptonshire in 1949 when he struck on day one against Glamorgan.

Sims claimed that scalp on the occasion of his 46th birthday, and you wouldn’t bet against Stevens matching that next year, if the fixture list allows. SM

^{Darren Stevens: Still taking wickets, aged 45}

History in Taunton

On day three of Somerset’s four-wicket victory over Middlesex, Jack Brooks cemented his place in the history books as county cricket’s first ever Covid replacement. 

The headband warrior came in for allrounder Lewis Gregory, whose partner had felt unwell overnight. Despite her receiving negative lateral flow results, government guidelines required Gregory to isolate pending the results of a PCR test.  

That meant that, having taken a 2 for 87 in the first innings, the England international's game was over before he had batted. 

Curiously, overseas star Marchant de Lange – who was left out of the original XI - was also at the Cooper Associates County Ground bowling ahead of play but remained sidelined. The ECB’s regulations require, so far as possible, a ‘like-for-like’ replacement and it may be that the South African’s extra height and pace ruled him out.  

It will have been particularly frustrating for Gregory whose preparations for the season were hampered by spending 25 days in isolation during March. Having tested positive for the virus while on Islamabad United duty, he spent 10 days confined to quarters in Pakistan.

Then, on his return to the UK, he had to wait four days to take an entry test in order to start the clock on a 10-day stint over here. And that is on top of the two weeks mandatory hotel quarantine he undertook in December ahead of the Big Bash. Has anyone in cricket spent more days self-isolating?!  

All’s well that ends well, though. The PCR test came back negative, meaning Gregory was in attendance on day four and is available for Somerset’s trip to Hampshire on Thursday. His absence did not prove costly, Somerset securing a seasonal double against the Seaxes thanks to an unbroken 86-run seventh-wicket stand between Steve Davies and debutant Lewis Goldsworthy. SD

King of The Oval?

There have been worse ideas than signing Hashim Amla to bat at the Kia Oval. After a difficult start to the season, nature was healing. Amla, back on a ground where his record is quite astonishing, eased himself through to 215 against Hampshire. He was dropped once, on 184, but that was the extent of any peril.

This was his third first-class century at the venue, sitting alongside six fifties. His teammate Ollie Pope, by the way, has churned out seven hundreds in 16 innings in Kennington – at an eye-watering average of 105.

Amla’s average at the Oval now sits above 84, assisted by his remarkable, unbeaten 311 for South Africa in 2012. That vigil remains the highest individual Test score by a player from his country, comprising 529 deliveries and 790 minutes. This one was decidedly shorter, only ended on 215, and the feeling never disappeared that the only man capable of dismissing Amla might be Amla himself – a sentiment proven right when he retired hurt on Saturday morning.

He reached the landmark of 18,000 first-class runs en route and later reacted with a quiet, elegant nonchalance to the news from the stadium announcer that he had reached his double hundred, removing his helmet with a polite nod to accept the ripples of acclaim from around this deserted colosseum. NF

And the prize for Covid innovation...

...Goes to Josh Shaw. A worthy shout-out for the Gloucestershire seamer, who found a novel way of approaching the Covid protocols.

Instead of running his twelfth man onto the field to collect his jumper at the start of each over, he nestled his in a sprinkler hole on the edge of the square at Bristol. NF