Yorkshire tried hard to chuck it away against the odds, with Bairstow out for second ball duck. But it's victory by four wickets.
21 I think, although the scoring changes every season I lose track! Hopefully Northants hold on down in Middlesex now, although I can still see them sneaking it. Big one at Headingley next week now either way
it's 16 for the win and up to 8 more points, with up to 5 for batting and up to 3 for bowling. also currently 8 points for a draw, including a tie or when little or no play possible was. batting points available in the first innings for reaching 250, 300, 350, 400, and 450 within 110 overs, and bowling points for taking 3, 6, 9 wickets, also within 110 overs. so max points per game is 24. yorkshire scored 329, so 2 batting points, and took 9 wickets, so 3 for that, making 21.
We've increased our chances of promotion by a lot over the last four days at least, but I was hoping we would get above Middlesex to put the cards in our favour for the clash with them starting Thursday. A draw wouldn't be a disaster there with them and Sussex still to play each other.
It's our bonus points which seem to be the key. Two wins fewer than Sussex but only nine points behind.
So apparently they're using the bloody Kookaburra ball for the next two rounds of matches! Just our luck to have to use that bloody thing for a must win game against promotion rivals!
looks like cricinfo has been following me again. https://www.espncricinfo.com/story/...sruptor-turning-heads-in-test-cricket-1448718
He sounds quite a talent. It’s good to see those struggling countries developing good players, to make test cricket more equal.
they lost a lot of momentum when one of the best ever bowlers and two of the best ever batsmen retired in close succession a few years ago.
I was assuming it was a similar story to Windies, young players turning their backs on traditional cricket after being lured in by the riches of franchise cricket? Genuine question?
i don't know. i reckon most teams go through periods of being really good and then going back to ordinary, but teams like west indies and zimbabwe overdid the being crap part of the cycle for the reason you mentioned, and zimbabwe suffered, as far as i'm aware, from power mad but grossly incompetent lunatics. further ino on the players i mentioned: muralidaran 1992-2010 8000 test wickets (most yet) in 133 games at 22.72, 92 more than warne's 708, anderson's 704, etc. the bowler 5th on the list (mcgrath) took 563, so quite a gap. sangakkara 2000-2015 6th most runs (root due to pass him within the year) 134 games 12400 runs at 57.40 (highest average among the top 33 run scorers jayawardene 1997-2014 10th most runs 149 games 11814 runs at 49.84 so they had all three for 2000-2010 and the two batsmen together for 2000-2014.
some stats i've dug out for england players that have scored 2500+ test runs (excluding the current match): noting, of course, that teams, especially england, play far more tests than they used to. == most 100s == 33 cook (161 matches) 32 root (145) < gap after root 23 pietersen (104) 22 boycott (108) 22 cowdrey (114) 22 hammond (85) 21 strauss (100) 20 barrington (82) 20 gooch (118) == most 50+ scores == 97 root (145 matches) 90 cook (161) < gap after cook 68 bell (118) 66 gooch (118) 64 boycott (108) 62 atherton (115) 60 cowdrey (114) 60 stewart (133) == most runs == 12472 cook (161 games) 12194 root (145) < gap after root 8900 gooch (118) 8463 stewart (133) 8231 gower (117) 8181 pietersen (104) 8114 boycott (108) 5 more 7000+ 5 more 6000+ 7 more 5000+ 11 more 4000+ 10 more 3000+ == fifty plus scores per match as % == 72.22 sutcliffe 70.49 hobbs 67.07 barrington 66.90 root 65.82 hutton < gap after hutton; next is under 60 == converting 50s to 100s, % == 50.00 amiss 50.00 vaughan 47.82 hammond 47.37 leyland 43.75 lamb 43.75 strauss 41.02 sutcliffe == averages == 60.73 sutcliffe 58.67 barrington 58.45 hammond 56.94 hobbs 56.67 hutton < gap after hutton 50.59 root 50.06 compton source: https://stats.espncricinfo.com/ci/e...rby=runs;team=1;template=results;type=batting