A thrilling climax to county cricket season yet who is watching?

Although sadly few people are aware of it, the race for the county cricket championship will this week reach its most gripping three-way climax for years. I declare a personal interest because, despite having for 70 years followed the fortunes of Somerset, where I live, ours is the only county never to have won the title. With just the final round to go we are now vying with Middlesex and Yorkshire, thanks only to spectacular victories in our last two games, one by 10 wickets over the current champions, Yorkshire.

A particularly welcome feature of these two matches, at a time when so many county teams are stuffed with players born elsewhere, was the key part played by two clever young local spin bowlers, Jack Leach from Taunton, who took six wickets in an innings in both games, and Dominic Bess, just 19, from across the Devon border, who demolished Warwickshire on his debut. In the West Country this week we will be praying for rain at Lords, where Yorkshire play Middlesex, and sunshine in Taunton, where we hope to beat the team bottom of the table, Nottinghamshire.

One of the more melancholy features of today’s county cricket is how little attention is now paid to it by the media. In the days when cricket was still often described as “England’s national game”, such a thrillingly tight finish to a championship race would have been avidly followed across the nation. No one seems to think it odd that our national radio and television news happily reports what happens when Wigan plays Warrington at rugby league, or Cowdenbeath plays Hamilton Academicals at football. But when great counties such as Yorkshire, Lancashire and even Somerset play cricket, this seems hardly ever worthy of mention.