“It’s like watching Jacques Kallis play,” said a beaming Joe Root having had a front-row seat for the latest instalment of Gus Atkinson’s dreamy first summer as a Test cricketer.
Master and apprentice is a phrase you often hear when Joe Root and Harry Brook are at the crease together. Yet the roles could so readily have been reversed in the Second Test against Sri Lanka at Lord’s, after the Decision Review System had both men lbw to balls clipping leg-stump.
Looking back on the first day at Lord’s, England were struggling for rhythm and just as they started to get going, Sri Lanka would chip away with another wicket. Enter Joe Root to stabilise things and put England on track for a fine first innings total.
What a start Jamie Smith has made to his England Test career. The most extraordinary thing is how comfortable he’s looked since arriving in the Test arena – in all aspects.
There aren’t many bigger days in the county calendar than the T20 quarter-finals, which take place later this week. I say quarter-finals, but really it feels like a semi because the prize is Finals Day at Edgbaston, to my reckoning still the biggest day of the domestic summer.
Apart from its rich legacy, and the historical importance of the games that are played in a fiercely competitive division structure, one of the main things that made me fall in love with county cricket was its altruistic aspect.
A MAIDEN century in his third first-class innings from 19-year-old left-hander Freddie McCann helped take Nottinghamshire to 405 despite a career-best 7-129 from Will Jacks. Batting again, Surrey ended the third day 133 ahead on 13-1.
A BRYDON CARSE century on his return after suspension was not enough to prevent Durham slipping towards likely defeat on the third day of the County Championship Division One match with Somerset.
WARWICKSHIRE BANKED their first Championship victory of the season in the most emphatic fashion, by an innings and 21 runs over struggling Kent, well inside three days at Edgbaston.
LEICESTERSHIRE’S INTERNATIONAL pair Ajinkya Rahane and Peter Handscomb battled hard to give their side a chance of saving the game, after Glamorgan’s Colin Ingram had hit a brilliant double hundred.
SUSSEX GO into the final day of their County Championship match against Derbyshire as clear favourites to extend their lead in the second division with their sixth victory of the season.