LV= County Championship 2023: Round 4
©Cricket World / John Mallett
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LV= County Championship 2023: Round 4 April 27th – May 1st – Live Scores, Match Reports, Results, Scorecards
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Here are all the Live Scores, Match Reports, Results, Stats and Scorecards for Round 4 of the LV= County Championship 2023.
Division One
Top Tournament Stats: LV= County Championship 2023 Division 1
Surrey blew Warwickshire’s batting away to seal a nine-wicket victory on the third day of their LV=Insurance County Championship match at Edgbaston.
It was pretty much the perfect day for Rory Burns’ side. First, in reply to 150, the tail wagged to add 70 in ten overs and lift the total to 281 thanks to Jamie Smith’s excellent 88 (150 balls) and a merry 35 (24) by tail-ender Dan Worrall.
Then Warwickshire’s top order was blown away by Kemar Roach (five for 34). A first innings lead of 131 appeared decisive on a pitch helpful to seamers and so it proved as the home side went into lunch on 22 for four, Roach having taken three for nine.
There was no way back from there despite Ed Barnard’s resolute 49 (74 balls) - his best score for Warwickshire.
Surrey knocked off the required 11 runs in two overs to complete a superb team performance led by pacemen Roach and Worrall who took a combined 15 for 160 in the match. The powerhouse display sent out a strident message to counties eyeing up a challenge for Surrey’s title. If last week’s emphatic victory over a strong Hampshire unit was a statement of intent from the champions, then this win over a Warwickshire side which had started the season very brightly was another.
After Surrey resumed on the third morning on 211 for eight, their script when perfectly to plan as they attached judiciously. Worrall hit effectively while Smith’s high-class innings peaked after the Australia departed with glorious successive sixes over long on off Chris Rushworth.
The voracious tail-wagging earned Surrey seven overs with the new ball at Warwickshire’s second innings before lunch and they took rapacious advantage of them. Roach lunched on three for nine after Rob Yates and Sam Hain edged into the cordon and Will Rhodes fell lbw. Worrall added the wicket of Alex Davies, caught at fourth slip before Roach’s dismissal of Rhodes, with the last ball of the session, rounded off a perfect morning for the visitors.
Their afternoon started pretty well too as Dan Mousley and Michael Burgess perished to edges to leave Warwickshire 39 for six. Barnard and Chris Woakes added 30 before the latter’s off-stump was knocked out by a beauty from Jordan Clark.
Rushworth dented Roach’s figures slightly with a couple of luscious cover-driven fours to take Warwickshire to the 131 required to make Surrey bat again, but Barnard edged Worrall behind and the last act of a match to forget for Warwickshire was a comical run out.
Surrey march imperiously on. Warwickshire must regroup ahead of their visit to Hampshire next week.
Warwickshire first team coach Mark Robinson said:
"We are really disappointed. We turned up this morning buoyant after what we did last night to stay right in the game and then we got blown away. There was no way back after lunch - that first hour killed us. We would have taken a deficit of 70 but to be 130 behind put us behind the eight ball and they took their momentum from their batting into their bowling,. Both our openers got good balls and next minute you're four down at the interval.
"We were on the wrong side of conditions for the first two days and did really well to stay in the game but then a bad hour costs us and that ends up as a bad session and that's what you have got to try to avoid.
"Credit to Surrey for playing how they did. It's a lesson to us to be that ruthless when we get into those positions. They are international bowlers and what we have to do is find a way to be two down, not four or five down, and somehow to be able to weather those storms.
"We have got beat but in the same way as we weren't claiming to be the best team in the league last week, we are not the worst team in the league this week. We are somewhere in between, an emerging team and an exciting team and it won't be the only time we get beaten this season but we will have lots more wins to come too."
Surrey head coach Gareth Batty said:
"It was a solid win and a great game of cricket considering the amount of time it took us to get over the line. I thought we were magnificent with the ball in the first innings, led by Mr Worrall yet again and Mr Roach. The whole group was good. I thought our batting was very good against a high-class attack with some high quality international bowlers who came at us hard.
"I thought we applied ourselves quite brilliantly and to get that sizeable lead made the difference in terms of the momentum shift and feelings between the two teams. Then Kemar was dynamite this morning, again with Dan Worrall and here we are on the third evening with a win.
"Kemar and Dan complement each other perfectly. They are basic opposites which is great. They are highly-skilled, highly intelligent and with the experience to back it up. We have passed a few numbers their way and said, 'look we just need to tighten up in certain areas, and the response has been through the roof.
"We have been pretty dominant in this game and it is led by the two opening bowlers but Jamie Smith's innings was superb as well. It's not his highest score by any stretch but it's the best I have seem him play. Against a very strong attack in difficult conditions, for him to play with the maturity he did and then to have the flourish at the end with that extra 30 quick runs just showed how good a player he can be. If he keeps playing like that, he will be another one that we won't be seeing around much which is a big positive for him and for England."
Middlesex (229 & 86-1) beat Kent (186 & 128) by nine wickets
Veteran seamer Tim Murtagh recorded a 10-wicket match haul to reach his 1,000th in all formats for Middlesex and set up a second successive LV= Insurance County Championship victory as they triumphed against Kent.
The Seaxes’ player-coach, who is now in his 17th season with the county and turns 42 later this summer, scythed through the visitors’ line-up with six for 42 – and match figures of 10 for 82 – as they crumbled to 128 all out at Lord’s.
Ben Compton and Jack Leaning had dragged Kent back into contention with their solid 87-run partnership before seven wickets tumbled for only 22, leaving Middlesex to chase a modest target of 86.
They achieved that in 24.3 overs, with Sam Robson compiling an unbeaten 41 and Pieter Malan 24 not out to steer their side across the line by nine wickets.
Trailing by just three runs at 40 for two overnight, Kent moved into the lead when Compton nudged Ethan Bamber to the boundary, but overall the morning session proved a tough slog for the batting side, who were restricted to less than two an over.
Middlesex’s four seamers all bowled with accuracy throughout, with Tom Helm – wicketless in the visitors’ first innings – unlucky to claim just a single victim this time despite beating the bat on several occasions.
Helm also induced a sharp edge from Leaning on 33, but Robson, flinging himself to his right at second slip, was unable to complete what would have been a stunning one-handed catch.
However, Robson gobbled up the next chance that came his way to remove Leaning, two short of his half-century, off Ryan Higgins’ bowling and Middlesex seized on that opening by picking up two more wickets before lunch.
The normally free-scoring Jordan Cox was restricted to six from 36 balls before Bamber had him caught at slip and Murtagh struck with the penultimate delivery of the session, pinning Kent captain Sam Billings lbw for a duck.
Compton, who dropped anchor to play a typically obdurate innings of 38 in more than three and a half hours, paid the price for an uncharacteristic lapse just after the interval, dabbing Murtagh straight to gully.
The seamer claimed a five-for – the 39th of his first-class career – in his next over, knocking back Joey Evison’s off stump and followed that up with his landmark wicket four balls later as Matt Quinn was leg before swinging across the line.
Those sandwiched a second for Bamber, who had Grant Stewart caught behind and last pair Wes Agar and Michael Hogan threw the bat, both depositing Murtagh into the stand to pad out Kent’s paltry total by 19 before Helm belatedly collected his solitary wicket to wrap up the innings.
Robson, having survived a scare when Agar’s first delivery zipped through him and away for byes, gradually settled into the groove with a sweetly-struck cover boundary off Hogan and four more off Quinn.
Although Mark Stoneman perished for 13, slapping Quinn’s half-volley to mid-off, Malan joined forces with Robson for an unbroken partnership of 57 that sealed their side’s win shortly after tea.
Middlesex bowler TIM MURTAGH, who took 10-82 in the match including his 1,000th wicket for the county (in all formats), said:
“I actually didn’t know – it wasn’t on my radar before this game, to be honest. It was more about just trying to get us another win and build on what we had achieved against Notts last week.
“It’s nice to get past that landmark for Middlesex. I’ve enjoyed my time here, it’s been a long time and who knows how long I’ve got left, so I’m going to enjoy every wicket that I take at the moment.
“We had the best of the conditions, no doubt about that. It was a good toss to win and there was a bit of movement in the pitch, especially on that first day.
“But I thought the way we batted on that first innings was great – to end up 40 or 50 in front in the first innings was crucial really. Then we stuck to our plans well this morning and got our rewards towards the end, it was a good all-round team performance
“We’ve got a good squad of five or six seamers now that can play any game. We’ve still got guys to come in – Blake (Cullen)’s been injured and he’s a great prospect as well.
“It’s a good, healthy competition between the seamers. Ethan (Bamber), I think, has bowled magnificently this year already, he’s taken to Division One cricket really well and that step up.”
Kent opener BEN COMPTON, who scored 38, said:
“Today was probably the best day for batting. After a very tricky period of 40 minutes that we got through last night, we really hoped to make hay this morning.
“I think we let ourselves down today and we didn’t nail our skills often enough, to be honest. Me and Jack (Leaning) played quite nicely to see off that first hour but to be fair to Middlesex, they were the better team with ball and bat and they played very well.
“People have clicked at different times, but we still haven’t quite come together with a complete team performance, whether that be with bat or ball.
“We’ve got a very strong batting line-up and last year we had three or four guys close on 1,000 runs.
“I just try to do my best opening, which is a tough job in England and I really enjoy batting with Zak (Crawley). We work together quite well at the top because we have different styles and hit the ball in different places.
“We’ve got about a 10-day break now, with Hampshire and Surrey coming up, so those are going to be tough challenges and we need to improve from this week.”
Division Two
Top Tournament Stats: LV= County Championship 2023 Division 2
Durham 452/9 declared beat Derbyshire 165 & 280 by an innings and seven runs
Matthew Potts skittled Derbyshire's lower order with a five-wicket haul to allow Durham to claim a dominant victory by an innings and seven runs in their LV= Insurance County Championship Division Two clash at Seat Unique Riverside.
Derbyshire halted Durham's push for victory in the morning session of day three as Matthew Lamb and Luis Reece put on 149 for the sixth wicket. Lamb fell agonisingly short of a century when he was pinned lbw by Ben Raine for 99.
The wicket opened the floodgates for Durham and Potts as the England seamer tore through the lower order to secure the four remaining scalps, ending with figures of five for 65, allowing the hosts to claim maximum points from the fixture. As a result, Durham extended their lead at the top of Division Two, while Derbyshire sit bottom after three games.
After losing 15 wickets on day two, Derbyshire skipper Leus du Plooy insisted that his side needed to show fight, and Lamb and Luis Reece defied the Durham attack with a solid approach in the morning session. Lamb cleared the rope twice amid short bowling from the hosts as he worked his way towards his half-century for the ninth time in his first-class career.
Durham could not halt the run rate and the Derybshire batters whittled down the deficit to 69 at the lunch break. Lamb was positioned 13 runs shy of his century before lunch, but quickly added two further boundaries to put himself on the brink of a deserved hundred. However, Lamb was denied three figures in agonising fashion as Raine pinned the right-hander lbw for 99, ending a stand of 149 for the sixth wicket. It was the wicket that would spark a collapse in the Derbyshire rearguard.
One wicket became two when Zak Chappell got himself in an almighty tangle attempting to play a short ball from Potts and somehow deflected the ball onto his stumps. Potts' aggression with the short ball tormented the Derbyshire lower order as Mark Watt took several blows to the body before he eventually fended the ball to Graham Clark.
The Potts-Clark combination was at work again as Sam Conners fell for a first-ball duck to allow Durham to close in on victory. Reece reached fifty for the second time in the game, but was again left stranded as Potts ensured that his home side would not have to bat again, castling Ben Aitchison to secure his seventh five-wicket haul in first-class cricket.
Derbyshire coach Micky Arthur said: "We 100% lost the game on the second day. The only thing we can take out of this game was the fight on the final day with the partnership between Matthew Lamb and Luis Reece. We can't concede 400 runs on day one like we did and you can't be rolled out like we were on day two. You're never going to come back into any game like that. You're not going to come back from being six for four. It was really disappointing, I thought it was a disappointing performance.
"We've got to be able to bounce back. It's easy when you've got the wind in your sails, but it's tough when things are not going your way. You make your own luck, so we've got to keep going. I said in the dressing room I think there is something missing altogether. I got the feeling that we needed something to kickstart our season. We got a little bit of a spark from Lamb and Reece."
Durham head coach Ryan Campbell said: "We fought hard today because you're not just given wins. We hard to earn it and put in some hard graft. Their two lads played well in the morning session and I thought we lost our way a little bit. Getting results here at the Riverside is hard work, but then again two wins from two, it doesn't seem so hard. We're getting results here, so it's a great wicket. Once there was an end open we felt their tail could go very quickly. That's the difference between us and a lot of the other teams.
"We have a lot of fast bowlers that can be genuinely aggressive and tailenders don't like facing them. I thought Matthew Potts was excellent. Both Potts and Brydon Carse want to play for England, but they also want to play for Durham. They need to put in performances for us to catch the eye of the selectors. We've got a couple of weeks to prepare for Yorkshire, which will be a great game. I honestly feel that Yorkshire are a Division One team. We want to find out if we're good enough to play in Division One and to do that we're going to have to beat teams like them. It's going to be the ultimate challenge for us."
An impressive, unbeaten first century on his home ground from Leicestershire’s Rishi Patel brought pleasant compensation to spectators who witnessed their side’s LV=Insurance County Championship match with Glamorgan fizzle out as a draw on the final day.
The 24-year-old right-hander, whose potential has excited the coaching staff at Grace Road since his move from Essex in 2020, seems now to be realising it. This was his second hundred in three matches after breaking his duck by driving his team to an epic victory over Yorkshire at Headingley three weeks ago.
He played superbly, rarely making an error let alone offering a chance, hitting 18 fours and three sixes in his career-best 134 not out before Leicestershire declared their second innings on 252 for three, most of them coming cleanly off the bat as he picked off boundaries all round the wicket.
His captain, Lewis Hill, was unlucky not to join him on three figures, dragging one on to his stumps for 82 having never looked in any trouble, the two sharing a 203-run partnership for the second wicket.
Earlier, Glamorgan had extended their overnight lead from 39 to 58 in losing their last two first-innings wickets as they were all out for 465, Chris Cooke the final man to depart after hitting 132. Veteran Leicestershire seamer Chris Wright finished with five for 59.
Bottom of the table last season, Leicestershire are beginning to look like a team with promotion potential this year, having topped 400 first-innings runs in all three Championship matches played so far and compiling seven partnerships of 100 runs or more in those games, compared with nine in total in the 2022 campaign.
Cooke’s century for the visitors followed his unbeaten 191 in the corresponding fixture last season, when his contribution was somewhat overshadowed by Sam Northeast’s epic 410 not out in Glamorgan’s record 795 for five declared.
It was a match that was arguably the nadir of a desperate Leicestershire season as they lost by an innings despite themselves making 584 in their first innings.
This time, in the lead rather than supporting role, Cooke lost his middle stump making room to swing hard as Wright completed a five-wicket haul for the first time since September 2021.
Two overs earlier, Andrew Salter had departed in unfortunate and uncomfortable circumstances, a ball from Wright jagging back to strike him somewhere around his protective box and rolling on to the stumps as he dropped to his haunches.
Having been 155 for five, Glamorgan will have felt well satisfied that their second five wickets had put on double that runs tally. Doing so had taken so long, however, on top of overs lost earlier to the weather, that there was little prospect of fashioning a positive result.
Glamorgan’s only hope was that they could bowl Leicestershire out in around 50 of the 87 overs still to play and give themselves a modest target in such time that remained.
Michael Neser gave them an encouraging start, having opener Sol Budinger out for a single when he prodded at one outside off stump and gave David Lloyd the simplest of catches at first slip.
Yet such optimism as that wicket might have stirred was tempered in the next over as Patel pounced on a legside delivery from Timm van der Gugten with such timing and vigour that the ball sailed out of the ground and into Milligan Road, coming to rest under a parked van. He followed up with a crisp drive through cover for four.
It was an indication of what was to come as Patel picked up boundaries all round the ground. On 42 from 25 for one at lunch, he hammered 18 in one over off Andrew Salter soon after the resumption, back-to-back swept fours taking him to 51 from 74 balls with nine fours and a six, which he celebrated with another six down the ground off the off-spinner, followed by a clip for four through midwicket.
Salter recovered well and with Neser taking over from Van der Gugten at the Bennett End the flow of runs was temporarily stemmed. But Patel got going again when Marnus Labuschagne replaced Salter, reverse sweeping the Australian to the fence to go to 98 before driving Jamie McIlroy's medium pace through mid-off to complete a hundred off 137 balls, containing 17 fours and two sixties.
Hill went past fifty off 91 balls soon afterwards as Leicestershire’s lead topped 100 with very little doing for any of the bowlers under high cloud.
The Leicestershire skipper must have had an eye on his second century of the season but missed out, falling just before tea on 82 as his counterpart Lloyd picked up a first wicket in the second innings, to which he added a second when Colin Ackermann holed out to deep midwicket soon after tea, before the teams shook hands on the inevitable draw at 4.50pm.
Leicestershire’s top scorer Rishi Patel, who made a career-best unbeaten 134, said:
“We knew they would come hard at us in the first period before lunch and it was just about managing that to begin with, making sure we played nice and straight and made good choices.
“There was still enough in the pitch for the bowlers if they put it in the right areas and the odd one kept low, but apart from that it stayed pretty true.
“I felt that after Glamorgan kept us in the field for so long, to come out and bat like we did showed a lot of strength and character. Lewis (Hill) played very well too because if they had been able to get a few quick wickets then we would have been on the back foot.
“Personally, the century against Yorkshire was kind of a monkey off my back and I feel like I know now how to score hundreds at first-class level. I feel I have a process I can trust and go back to and repeat.
“I think we got as much from the game as we could in the circumstances, being a bowler light. To keep the scoring rate around threes for 150 overs shows what this bowling unit has done over the winter. When you can control the scoreboard like that it puts a lot less pressure on the batters.
“We came in for a lot of criticism last season after not winning a game but I honestly believe we are a different team this year. There is a lot more character, a lot more heart and the lads are in a great place.”
Glamorgan’s red-ball head coach Matthew Maynard said:
“It was an improvement on the last game by us, which was what I was hoping for.
“To recover from the position we were in on the third day and in doing so create a bit more history for the club was fantastic.
“I can’t fault them for effort but the Leicester lads played really well, Rishi Patel in particular. It was a super knock from him and from their skipper today, which saved the game.
“A couple of balls kept low yesterday and we were hoping for a bit more of that when we bowled today. Chris Wright bowled 30-odd overs coming into today and he still found a little bit of uneven bounce.
“But I think the heavy roller deadened the pitch and we didn’t really get it to go up and down as much as we expected. With the weather around early in the season, we are not going to set games up at this time of year.
“But full credit to Leicester, they fought hard. They look a strong side this year and credit to Paul Nixon and his staff for turning them around.”
Gloucestershire 248 & 121-4 drew with Sussex 455-5 dec
The weather was the only winner in the rain-ruined LV= County Championship match between Gloucestershire and Sussex at Bristol, which ended in a predictable draw.
Only 41.2 overs were bowled on a frustrating final day at the Seat Unique Stadium where the visitors might have secured victory, enforcing the follow-on after bowling Gloucestershire out for 248, from an overnight 198 for nine.
Miles Hammond finished unbeaten on 87, from 171 balls, with 12 fours, while Ajeet Dale contributed ten to a crucial last-wicket stand of 61. Nathan McAndrew ended with figures of five for 63 before drizzle and poor light intervened.
With a lead of 207, Sussex asked Gloucestershire to bat again and when play resumed at 3.30pm, reduced them to 41 for four, left-arm seamer Sean Hunt claiming three of the wickets
But, with two runs added, more rain brought a second interruption to play. And, although it began again at 5.08pm with a possible 22.2 overs still to be bowled, only 18.2 were sent down before the players shook hands, the scoreboard reading 121 for four, with Graeme van Buuren 55 not out.
Sussex took 13 points after dominating what play there was in the match, while Gloucestershire had to settle for six.
The final day began with Hammond and Dale looking to extend the home side’s first innings and bat for as long as possible.
With only a couple of overs until the second new ball, Sussex elected to start with spin at both ends and the decision should have paid quick dividends.
Hammond, unbeaten on 42 at the start, reached a 128-ball half-century with two fours off Jack Carson and then reverse swept a third boundary off James Coles.
But his valuable innings should have ended on 55 when he miscued a Coles full toss to mid-on where Hunt spilled a catch above his head that should have been taken.
The total was 211 for nine and the error cost Sussex time as well as 37 more runs as Hammond and Dale batted comfortably against the second new ball, taken at 212 for nine, on what remained a very flat pitch.
The pair had taken Gloucestershire to within two of an unlikely batting point when Dale fell lbw to Tom Haines. By then the floodlights were shining brightly under heavily overcast skies.
Hammond had suffered a painful blow attempting to pull a delivery from Hunt and the umpires were already showing concern about the light when Dale was dismissed.
It was no surprise when, with both teams out and ready to start Gloucestershire’s second innings, they ruled conditions unfit for play to resume.
With heavy rain forecast during the afternoon, ground staff brought on the heavy covers. Lunch was taken and a draw seemed the only likely outcome.
But on the resumption, with a possible 44 overs left to bowl, excellent opening spells by Hunt and McAndrew plunged the hosts into trouble.
Chris Dent was pinned lbw by McAndrew’s second ball of the innings, while the impressive Hunt removed James Bracey, who edged a catch to wicketkeeper Oli Carter.
It was almost nine for three as Hammond nicked the ball at catchable height between Carter and first slip Tom Alsop.
Sussex needed to take such chances. But Hunt struck two more blows, removing Marcus Harris leg before and Hammond to another Carter catch before the weather closed in again with the total 43 for three.
Again the covers went on and were withdrawn for a final resumption. Gloucestershire skipper van Buuren, who had entered the fray at 16 for three on a king pair, went on the counter-attack and reached an entertaining fifty off 59 balls, with 11 fours.
Ollie Price provided solid support, but having been denied a probable victory at Worcester by rain in their previous game, van Buuren’s men had cause to be grateful to the weather this time.
Gloucestershire head coach Dale Benkenstein said: “I’m gradually getting used to the Gloucestershire way. We have tendency to get ourselves into tight situations and then battle out of them.
“Today I was concerned when we were 41 for four, but then delighted at the fighting spirit shown to come out with a draw.
“In a way, it was a mirror image of our last game against Worcestershire. There we felt robbed by the weather and this time it helped us.
“After having our first home game against Yorkshire washed out, it was good to get onto the field and all credit to our ground staff for making conditions playable.
“It was not the way we like to play our cricket, but you will always get games like that in a season and the important thing is not to lose them.
“I always like to bat first when we win the toss and, with hindsight, perhaps we should have done. But there was still some dampness in the pitch at the start of the game and we weren’t sure how it would play.”
Sussex captain Cheteshwar Pujara said: “It was difficult batting against the new ball, so it was important we made a good start to the match. Ali Orr and Tom Alsop ensured that and made my life easier.
“At the start of my innings I had to defend well and play a lot of dot balls. There was cloud cover, but it was easier when we saw off the new ball.
“I don’t think I have ever gone to bed after a day’s play in a first class match on 99 not out before. But I did so on 98 during a Test Match against England in 2012 and went on to get a double hundred.
“James Coles batted brilliantly with me and really took his chance coming into the side. He came in with us three down, but played his natural game as an attacking player and also bowled well.
“Nathan McAndrew has been brilliant for us. He is likely to miss the next game because Steve Smith is coming in, but has been great and on that pitch got his line and length exactly right.
“We are getting better as a team. The one area we can still improve on is fielding and when we start taking more catches our bowling attack will look even stronger.”
©Cricket World 2023
