• Captain hits calm 82 as his side revive ruthless spirit of old• Nottinghamshire to begin final day on 181 for eightThis third day, albeit one interrupted by morning rain, had the sense of revisiting recent glories for Yorkshire, who charged towards a…
Updates from around the grounds on the third day of playSign up to The Spin, our weekly cricket email 11.36am BST More rain at Headingley I’m afraid, and I think this could be a longer delay. There was just enough time for Gary Ballance and Jack Leanin…
• Ben Coad takes four wickets to bring visitors’ first innings to a close• James Hildred hits impressive century for SomersetAfter seven successive days of washed-out cricket at Headingley to start the summer this was the kind of contest they had been …
Updates from around the grounds on the second day of playDay one: Brooks stars with bat and ball as Yorkshire rallySign up to The Spin, our weekly cricket email 11.01am BST All is well with the world here at Headingley. The sun in shining and Dickie ha…
• Late stand with Ben Coad plus three wickets puts visitors in trouble• 18 wickets fall at Chelmsford as Ed Barnard takes five at TauntonJack Brooks lit up a feverish evening session at Headingley as Yorkshire recovered from early strife against Nottin…
• ‘We haven’t seen any work, no Super Sopper, no forking’• Yorkshire say machinery would have made conditions worseRyan ten Doeschate has criticised Yorkshire’s lack of action after the opening match in Essex’s defence of the County Championship was ab…
Latest from around the grounds on opening weekendVince back to his frustrating best for HampshireEmail Tanya or get in touch below the line 10.09am BST Good morning from Old Trafford where the lawnmowers are marching up and down, both teams are practis…
• Hampshire batsman hits rapid 75 before missing straight ball• Four games are washed out without a ball being bowledIt is not supposed to start with a whimper. Six Championship games: four called off without a ball bowled, at Headingley, Old Trafford,…
Yorkshire v Essex was one of four games abandoned without play due to rain as the 2018 county season got off to a miserable start 6.42pm BST Anthony McGrath knows all about miserable starts to a county season in Leeds having spent his entire playing ca…
• England all-rounder joins Chennai Super Kings as injury replacement• Yorkshire call for cut-off point on such signingsYorkshire have bemoaned “an impossible situation” and demanded the introduction of a cut-off point for Indian Premier League deals a…
With the new county cricket season beginning next week, we’d like to hear your hopes for the summer aheadThe weather is looking a bit kinder than in recent weeks and soon cricket grounds around the country will be hosting domestic games. Friday 13 Apri…
Debut match, between county’s first international team and Isle of Man, end in 1-1 drawBarely six months since its beer-soaked inception in the back room of a Yorkshire pub, the county’s first “international” football team made its debut in a world lea…
Players who trained together for first time last weekend will take on Isle of Man in PontefractYorkshire’s first “international” football team will play its debut match on Sunday after being welcomed into a world league for repressed minorities, indepe…
10.50am BST
Wicket at Taunton! Patel gets Abell, and Somerset lead by 279, four down. Worst thing for Middlesex would be a declaration before the rain today… Hildreth on 97.
10.50am BST
Dropped! Browne tried to pull Brooks, got a horrible edge towards gully and running back Lyth overran and it shelled it. Would have been a good catch, but should have taken it. 161 for three.
The side that won promotion a year ago and won the title a fortnight ago looked as if they would suffer their first defeat of the season. But they just keep winning
By Gary Naylor for the 99.94 Cricket Blog, part of the Guardian Sport Network
Whenever the scoreboard ticked over to 76, the late Brian Johnston would announce that it was “Trombone Time”, so how he would have enjoyed Essex’s win over Hampshire at the Rose Bowl. The hosts’ Aussie captain, George Bailey, un-Pontingly enforced the follow-on after the wheels had finally come off in the champions-elects’ annus mirabilis, dismissed for 76 in their first dig. Cue 20-year-old Dan Lawrence’s century, backed up by the old hands, James Foster and Neil Wagner, who posted 82 for the ninth wicket to set an awkward fourth-day target of 185 for a suddenly nervy and much-needed win. The victory fanfares were soon blaring again for Essex, as Sam Cook led the attack with 5-18 to despatch Hampshire for (you guessed it), 76 stretching Essex’s lead at the top of the table to 69 points. They’re just trolling their opponents now.
10.25am BST
Not a pretty scene at Grace Road, where it’s might wet.
10.24am BST
A bit on prize money. Essex have obviously sewn up the really important bit, but there’s plenty for Surrey and Lancs to play for. Second place shares £240,000, and third £115,000. The winners of Division Two gets £120,000, and the runner-up £57,000.
9.31am BST
Good morning. Today should be the day. Lancashire are in all sorts of trouble at Taunton, where there’s rain on the way. When they fail to win that game – which, surely, surely they won’t win – Essex will be the County Champions for the first time since 1992. To be honest, Essex better win because I have already written 1,000 words on them doing so.
So I’m Will Macpherson and I’m at the sun-drenched Oval to tell you about all that and more. Here, Surrey have Yorkshire following on. Will the pitch break up? Can they force a win? I don’t know if it mean anything, but Andy Hodd just scored a superb overhead kick in Yorkshire’s football match. There’s Div 1 action at Uxbridge too. It’s a tussle for points. Middlesex currently have none.
Related: Wily Ryan ten Doeschate paves way for glorious march of the Essex boys
10.57am BST
News from the Oval is that Mark Stoneman looks in absolutely delightful touch. He’s moved to 18, after back to back boundaries off Sidebottom, through cover point and square-leg.
10.54am BST
Morning Will and chums. Warwickshire lead by 13 after four overs is the optimistic way of looking at things here at sunny-ish Edgbaston, where Jamie Porter has continued his golden season for champions-elect Essex with the early wickets of Sam Hain and Jonathan Trott – both lbw – in his first nine balls.
First one trapped Hain on the back leg as the bat jacknifed down at an awkward angle, then Trott was pinned on the front pad. If there was a day for Ian Bell to end a drought of centuries that goes back to April last year, this is it. Chris Woakes back for the Bears, while Neil Wagner is in for his second spell as the Essex overseas left-armer. Tom Westley plays too.
10.14am BST
Welcome to Old Trafford for day three of the fourth to last round of county cricket – live! for this fine summer! I’m Will Macpherson and I’m here to guide you through the action from here and the other eight games on offer. There’s some other cricket on offer, apparently, but we need not mention that.
The weather is nice now but nasty later, I’m told. The chances of a result in this Lancashire-Essex game, given the loss of day one, were pretty slim as is, but losing the final session today would end all hope. Haseeb Hameed batted beautifully last night and resumes on 85 this morning. He’s dug his team out of a horrible hole, to be honest.
Related: County cricket: Lancashire v Essex, Surrey v Hampshire and more – live!
Derbyshire reach T20 Blast quarter-finals while Yorkshire miss out despite a milestone but can separation by net run rate be made less opaque?
By Gary Naylor for the 99.94 Cricket Blog, part of the Guardian Sport Network
Fifteen of 18 counties eyed scoreboards anxiously on the last day of the T20 Blast group stages as, after all those weeks of matches, only three (including Durham) had no chance of making the quarter-finals. Is that a testimony to the competitiveness of the format or a condemnation of the foolishness of hijacking high summer for a lot of sound and fury that ultimately signified nothing? Soon we will have two chances to consider that conundrum. Leicestershire won’t be too bothered about such musings as they secured their spot in the last eight with a victory over the team of the season (so far) Nottinghamshire, who had already topped the North Group. The most fantastic Mr Foxes proved to be Cameron Delport and Matt Pillans, the former making a century, the latter defending seven off the last over. Both are South African-born, somewhat nondescript (for this level) players, whose faces will not be screaming out of the knockout stages marketing posters. Good on them but also, I’m afraid, as the young people say, meh.
