Interesting day today, it’s not too common an occurrence at CLS these days for 13 wickets to fall in a day - but looking around the country, despite the drought-like weather we’ve been having for the last fortnight or so the bowlers have got quite a lot of assistance today.
I had multi-screen going for most of the day and the pitches at most grounds played in a similar way, including at Trent Bridge for the Test, plenty of seam movement on parched pitches and swing for pretty much all of the lifespan of a ball. The only game I didn’t see anything of was the one at Derby (hosts closed on 352-2), which seems to be the anomaly, but in the first division, every team that batted first was dismissed today.
Back at CLS, there were some horrible dismissals for Durham players, far too many lads throwing their wickets away whilst set, perhaps many were the victims of being lured into a false sense of security after last weeks featherbed, because this pitch seems to have a lot more life in it. BUT, it’s frustrating that every time we seemed to be steadying the ship and putting pressure back on the bowlers one batsman or another handed it meekly back.
To pick up 3 wickets in the mini-session that ended the day was a big boost, but I’m cautious to make too much of it given that only one of them was a genuine batsman. We could have them 4 down early tomorrow and still have their best batsmen to come.
There’s a downpour expected overnight and grey skies forecast for most of tomorrow, which with any luck will assist our lads greatly and create terrible conditions for batting.
Notable mentions to Minto (again) who needs to bat higher, but who also bowled really nicely with the new ball AND of course to Mitch Killeen who has taken his first County Championship wicket and is now just 256 FC wickets behind his old man!
