Bob Willis Trophy: Who makes our team of the season?

NICK FRIEND looks back on the star performers from a competition that only began at the start of August but, by the end of September, had provided two months of fine cricket in a summer that threatened to be lost entirely

2bwttoty

Alastair Cook

At the end of an exceptional season where nothing was as it seemed, it was quite reassuring for it to end with Sir Alastair Cook as the leading run-scorer and standout batsman in the Bob Willis Trophy.

We have been searching for constants throughout an altogether skewed summer, so the sight of the former England captain’s metronomic trigger setting its stall out at Lord’s represented a rare moment of bliss – unless you were of a Somerset persuasion.

Batting with an unusual fluency, he made 172 title-winning runs in the campaign’s final match. His dominance wasn’t limited to HQ – that was his seventh hundred at the ground; he also made an unbeaten 129 in a rain-ruined draw at Arundel. He has promised to continue into next year. On this evidence, he could prolong his career for as long as his heart desires.

Jake Libby

Worcestershire enlisted Jake Libby with specifically this in mind. For all their white-ball success, the county’s red-ball form had fallen away in recent years. And so, Libby was prised from Nottinghamshire with the intention of adding runs to a top order that has struggled for consistency in the County Championship.

He didn’t disappoint; Worcestershire only passed 400 once last season – in their first game of the 2019 season against wooden-spooners Leicestershire. In a five-match group stage this time around, they hit the landmark three times, with Libby contributing a century and three fifties in nine innings.

Shoutouts, too, for Daryl Mitchell and Tom Fell. Mitchell scored 384 runs at an average of 42.66, while chairing the Professional Cricketers’ Association through its most challenging summer.

Fell, on the other hand, perhaps has a claim to the domestic campaign’s moment of the season: his century against Northamptonshire was the sixth of his first-class career, but his first for five years since a battle with testicular cancer.

cook280901

Sir Alastair Cook ended the season as the leading run-scorer

Tom Lammonby

Thirty cricketers made their first-class debuts during this shortened campaign. None went better than Tom Lammonby, the latest gem off a production line that continues to serve up opportunities for its graduates.

The 20-year-old Devonian made three centuries – the most of anyone in the competition, with the significance of each rising with a crescendo until his pinnacle in the final. His first hundred came against Gloucestershire in a game his side was already dominating.

His second was a match-winning effort that ultimately clinched a place for his county in the Lord’s showpiece. Beginning the second innings of a winner-takes-all shootout against Worcestershire with a 51-run lead, he made 107 in a total of 193, carrying his bat as wickets tumbled around him.A 60-run victory told only a fraction of the story.

And then, to his zenith: 116 against Essex’s feted bowling attack – a knock that gave his team a chance of glory. It didn’t come, but Lammonby ensured his would be a name to remember.

Ben Slater

The most curious summer of all must sit in the hands of Ben Slater, the Nottinghamshire batsman who began his season on loan at Leicestershire, before returning to his parent club in time to hit 86 for Nottinghamshire against Leicestershire at Grace Road, from where he had just been recalled. He scored two hundreds – both against Lancashire and both for different teams: one for Nottinghamshire and another for Leicestershire. Got that?

And then, there were three ducks – two of which as part of a pair for Leicestershire against Derbyshire, his former county, which in turn came just a week after hitting a career-best 172.

Not part of Notts’ star-studded T20 side, he ended his season with his third duck against Durham, before watching Joe Clarke and Ben Duckett hit hundreds, who also enjoyed fine campaigns.

Debuts last forever: How the last month opened the door for a new generation

Will Rhodes

“It will be a little bit more mentally tiring captaining the side as well but that’s all part and parcel of cricket,” Will Rhodes told The Cricketer ahead of the start of the Bob Willis Trophy.

“You have to work for your living and however you do it, you have to get through it. I’ll always be in the game – it will be very demanding but that was one of the decisions I made when I got offered it.”

He was talking, then, about how he would go about balancing the tasks of captaincy, bowling and opening the batting. And so, fair play to the Warwickshire allrounder, who put to bed any lingering doubts he might have had during a career-best 207 in a draw with Worcestershire – one of four double hundreds in the inaugural Bob Willis Trophy.

That effort comprised almost half of his season tally of 423 runs, which came at an average of 52.87.

darrenstevo280901

Darren Stevens continues to defy his age

Steven Davies

The Somerset wicketkeeper has always been a pleasant watch – a typically languid left-hander, whose ability to score freely at one point made him an England cricketer. Those times have since been and gone, however.

Instead, these days he is a steady, sensible constant in a Somerset side that will surely one day take the final step beyond bridesmaidship. In a very decent personal campaign, Davies churned out 320 runs in Somerset’s middle order at an average of 40, culminating in a fine century against Warwickshire.

Coming together with Jamie Overton at 226 for 8, the pair added 180, with Davies a vital, calming presence throughout. He sauntered to 123 not out, facing 182 balls for his troubles in a knock lasting 279 minutes. At the other end, cue fireworks: Overton’s 120 required just 92 balls.

Darren Stevens

Last year was going to be Darren Stevens’ swansong – until it wasn’t. Not on his watch. Kent had all but announced their decision to release him, before a remarkable run of late-season form forced their hand.

Twelve months on, history repeated itself. The 44-year-old was short on runs but not on wickets, taking 29 in just five games – all at 15.58 apiece, a staggering haul for an allrounder who shows no signs of stopping. He recently signed his latest one-year deal.

“He’s been better than anyone else,” Daniel Bell-Drummond told The Cricketer earlier this season. “That’s the most remarkable thing. There’s no way he’s on the wane – he’s still at the peak of his powers with the ball.”

Stevie Eskinazi became his 800th career wicket in a rain-affected draw between Kent and Middlesex – some effort for anyone, let alone a seamer who had hardly bowled a ball in anger in the first half of his first-class career.

He added three five-wicket hauls to his collection during the competition, while no seamer bowled more overs than the 209 he sent down. In fact, across the board, only Simon Harmer bowled more balls – not bad at 44.

A weight was lifted from Tom Fell's shoulders

Craig Overton

England see something in Craig Overton. Otherwise, he wouldn’t have made his Test debut in the midst of an Ashes series, nor would he hold one of three developmental fast bowling contracts, with one eye on future tours abroad, where line and length alone will not suffice.

The Bob Willis Trophy, therefore, was the Somerset allrounder’s opportunity to show off what he has learnt and how he has improved for the time and expenditure put into the 26-year-old. The result?

Thirty wickets at 13.43 apiece, two five-wicket hauls and a strike rate that gave him a wicket every 6.3 overs. His economy rate – 2.05 – was the stingiest of anyone to have taken more than 12 wickets.

Simon Harmer

Much like Cook’s success, there was something reassuring about Simon Harmer’s continued hold over county batsmen. In a sense, it was just another year for the South African off-spinner: 38 wickets in six games translates quite neatly into a regular summer haul.

This time around, he took 14 scalps in a single game against Surrey – the third time he has taken 14 in a match for Essex. It remains one of the mysteries of the domestic game that an off-spinner – no matter how skilful – can prove such a menace, even when conditions seem not to suit.

“He created balls that players would play and miss or nick which I wasn’t used to at the start,” Essex wicketkeeper Adam Wheater told The Cricketer ahead of the season.

“I found that he was rushing me because I didn’t realise that he could make batsmen play and miss off that line or length. I had to get used to him beating the bat on balls where I didn’t think it could happen.”

hannondalby280901

Olly Hannon-Dalby enjoyed a stellar campaign for Warwickshire

Jamie Porter

Fresh from being left out of England’s 55-man training squad for the international summer, Porter arrived in the Bob Willis Trophy with a point to prove – if not to him or to the Essex faithful, then to those who appear to have decided against his merits at international level.

Only Harmer, Overton and Stevens took more wickets than the seamer, who added six at Lord’s in the final to reinforce his credentials.

His statistics are skewed slightly against him, given that rain washed out Essex’s draw with Hampshire before he could bowl a ball. So in truth, he snared 27 wickets in five matches – a fine effort on the back of the blow with which he began the campaign.

Olly Hannon-Dalby

There were several candidates for this position: Tim Murtagh continues to take wickets on an ageless basis; Dan Moriarty played just twice for Surrey but took 17 wickets in the process; Josh Davey is an unsung member of Somerset’s lauded attack; Harry Podmore’s form for Kent saw him sign a new contract last week.

But we’ve plumped for Olly Hannon-Dalby, the lanky Warwickshire seamer, who operates exclusively beneath the radar. Awarded his county cap at the end of the 2019 campaign, he admitted then to how proud a moment it was in the context of a career that began at Yorkshire, before bringing him to Edgbaston.

Hannon-Dalby took 25 wickets in his five games at 20.92 apiece; his figures of 6 for 33 against Gloucestershire represent the best of his time in first-class cricket. In the second innings of that game, he added six more wickets – his first ten-wicket match.

And those who missed out: Tom Abell, Ben Duckett, Alex Lees, Jordan Cox, Tom Fell, Josh Davey, Tim Murtagh, Dan Moriarty, Amar Virdi

For unrivalled coverage of the county season, subscribe to The Cricketer and receive 3 issues for £5

Comments

LATEST NEWS

STAY UP TO DATE Sign up to our newsletter...
SIGN UP

Thank You! Thank you for subscribing!

Edinburgh House, 170 Kennington Lane, London, SE115DP

website@thecricketer.com

Welcome to www.thecricketer.com - the online home of the world’s oldest cricket magazine. Breaking news, interviews, opinion and cricket goodness from every corner of our beautiful sport, from village green to national arena.