Hampshire have been given an eight-point deduction in the County Championship and fined £5,000 for a "substandard pitch" during their home match against Sussex in May.
Hands shaken at Taunton with Yorkshire on 134-9 and 24 overs left. Somerset 14 points Yorkshire 9 points
Article in The Guardian dated 30th August 2025 At a meeting at Lord’s next Tuesday the 18 county chairs will be asked to choose between keeping the status quo – 10 teams in Division One and eight in Division Two each playing 14 matches – or adopting a new structure that involves a 12-team County Championship being split into two pools of six, with the remaining six clubs in a second tier beneath this. A vote will follow the meeting later next week if the PGC judge there is a realistic prospect of it being passed, which is not guaranteed. With 12 votes required to alter the structure, Surrey, Yorkshire, Middlesex, Essex and Somerset have already stated they will oppose any reduction to the current 14-game season, with the voting intentions of Derbyshire, Sussex and Kent in the balance. The 10 other counties – an unlikely alliance of Test match grounds and Division Two sides such as Leicestershire and Northamptonshire – are broadly in favour but need two other clubs to come on side.
Yep. We've only got ourselves to blame for being in this position with our woeful batting, and to a slightly lesser extent, slip fielding.
On the one hand, no side with just two losses deserves to be relegated. On the other hand, any side with just two wins and 12 batting points does deserve it.
So Cartwright has indeed gone back to Australia (thanks Hilton for your brief but excellent contribution). So Fortuin comes in for Dawson tomorrow then with one of Orr or Prest coming in for Cartwright. Obviously weakens our middle order but we keep an excellent spinner in the side which I'm definitely happy about.
It has to be Orr but, sod's law, he'll probably get out cheaply now we back him after his good One Day Cup form.
Orr deserves it more, and is clearly in better form. But he isn't a middle order batter. It might work if we dropped Vince down to no.4, but I don't think we'd do that. And I'm not sure I'd want us to that. Ultimately though, there is no good answer - regardless of the batting order, and regardless of Orr or Prest. We do though have a top quality bowling attack. And that's what I'm holding onto.
Forecast is fairly decent for tomorrow thankfully. At this time of year you could get anything so that's a relief. Sunday is horrendous! Might get the odd shower throughout the day but they may even play through them depending on how light the rain is.
I suppose us playing in the second SF will give him time to get to Birmingham tomorrow. But only if SA allow him to.
