Counties set for thrilling finale in relegation battle
Six face threat of going down with Warwickshire Middlesex, Somerset and Yorkshire in most danger
Never has the County Championship been so cut-throat. After two divisions were inaugurated in 2000, two-ninths of the teams in the first division had to be demoted each season. This year, with the division reduced to eight, one-quarter will endure the drop to the second division, with all the loss of face, if not money.
Every county in the first division could still be demoted, except for the champions, Essex. They will receive £532,000 for winning the title but, perhaps better still, will be the blessing that they can enjoy their cricket in the final fortnight, and sleep at night without agonising over “what ifs” and “if onlys”.
It all makes for a rather delicious twist – provided you are watching rather than playing, and then so long as you are not a supporter of Middlesex, Somerset or Yorkshire. These are the three counties most in danger of joining Warwickshire in demotion.
Middlesex, last year’s champions, can take heart from the statistic that Lancashire, their opponents in the penultimate round of matches that start today, have not won an away game since 2015, and on the surface they are even less likely to start doing so because James Anderson has to be rested. But this is the second half of September; the games start at 10.30am; the visiting side can exercise the right to bowl first, without a toss.
Essex last week arrived at Edgbaston to find a true batting surface, but the dampness in the air – “the overheads” – enabled them to slice through Warwickshire and gain the title.
Middlesex moreover, more than any other county this season, will be thinking about the “if onlys” – in both of their matches against Essex. At their first meeting at Lord’s in April, Middlesex were on top throughout but, in their second innings, they batted on – even though rain was forecast – until they set Essex a target of 452. Essex were still far from acquiring the veneer of victors – more like candidates to go straight back down to the second division – and at the finish they were hanging on at 174 for eight.
Their second meeting was in the round of pink-ball day/night matches in late June. With six overs left, Middlesex had four wickets in hand. They did not even survive five overs as Simon Harmer hoovered up nine wickets in the innings and 14 in the match. Never had Middlesex collapsed like that, or lost a game, in 2016.
The other main demotion battle is at the Oval where Surrey play Somerset. Surrey are in the upper half of the division, even though they have won only one game, such is the value of a high-scoring draw. Score 400 in 110 overs, pick up another five points for a draw, and you are sitting pretty.
Surrey have the three highest run-scorers in the division in Kumar Sangakkara, with 1,250 runs, Mark Stoneman (959) and Rory Burns (922). Why should the system favour counties who achieve high-scoring draws over those who achieve low-scoring draws?
This cut-throat cricket is a far cry from the 1960s.
“At Surrey we always set out each summer to win the championship, just as Yorkshire did,” so Micky Stewart, the former England batsman and Surrey captain, told his biographer Stephen Chalke.
“But very few of the other counties did. I talked to John Murray about it. I said to him, ‘When you were playing for Middlesex, at the start of the summer, did you talk about winning the championship?’ He said, ‘No, never’. Most counties just had this lovely existence, where they went round the country, playing the games. In many ways it was an extension of club cricket.”
And a bit of intensity in the final fortnight will not come amiss.