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Monday 16 April 2018

County Championship 2018 Round 1 Day 4

Division One
Hampshire 290 & 244 v Worcestershire 211 & 127
Hampshire (21 pts) beat Worcestershire (4 pts) by 196 runs
Hampshire's fast bowlers condemned newly promoted Division Two champions Worcestershire to a heavy 196-run County Championship defeat on the final morning at Southampton.
Resuming on 59-3, needing a further 265 to win, the visitors were blown away.
Former West Indies fast bowler Fidel Edwards took 3-33, including two in two balls, in a whirlwind spell.
Gareth Berg, Brad Wheal, Liam Dawson and Kyle Abbott (4-45) took a wicket each as the Pears were out for 127.
Having taken the three wickets to fall the evening before, Worcestershire old boy Abbott finished with match figures of 7-90.
Daryl Mitchell, who had a career average of just under 70 against Hampshire, including a double century, had resumed in a confident frame of mind on 34. But he managed just a single before being pinned lbw by a ball from Abbott which kept low.
George Rhodes, son of former Pears director of cricket Steve Rhodes, took 35 balls to get off the mark before edging Edwards to Hashim Amla at first slip for just a single.
Ben Cox departed in the next over when Wheal sent his off stump cartwheeling.
Edwards trapped Ed Barnard, then found captain Joe Leach's edge next ball before last man Steve Magoffin poked Dawson to James Vince at short mid-wicket.

Lancashire 158 & 73 v Nottinghamshire 222 & 10-4
Notts (20 pts) beat Lancashire (3 pts) by six wickets
Nottinghamshire began life back in Division One with a six-wicket win at Lancashire after an incredible finish.
Having resumed on 58-2, the hosts were all out for just 73 after losing eight wickets for 15 runs, as England paceman Jake Ball (4-14) and left-armer Harry Gurney (6-25) ran riot at Old Trafford.
That left Notts needing 10 runs to win, but they then slumped to 9-4.
Australian seamer Joe Mennie took three wickets, before Riki Wessels scored the single needed for victory.
Lancashire started day four trailing by just six runs, but once Keaton Jennings was trapped lbw by Gurney for 27, chaos ensued.
The normally reliable Shivnarine Chanderpaul went in Gurney's next over, caught superbly by Ross Taylor, before Ball took a wicket in each of his next four overs.
Only three of Lancashire's batsmen reached double figures, as they became the third county after Kent and Northants to be bowled out for less than 75 in the opening round of County Championship fixtures.
Mennie's burst to leave Notts 5-3 was no more than a blip before Steven Mullaney's side took 20 points back to Trent Bridge.

Yorkshire v Essex - match abandoned (5 pts each)
Yorkshire and Essex's County Championship match at Headingley was abandoned as a draw without a single ball bowled because of a wet outfield.
Umpires Ian Gould and Richard Illingworth called off day four shortly after a second inspection at 10:00 BST.
Yorkshire head groundsman Andy Fogarty described recent conditions in Leeds as "the worst in 30 years I've known".
"This weather seems to have started since January right until now," Fogarty told BBC Radio Leeds.
"We're trying to prepare pitches, trying to prepare the outfield and you get one good day in between seven or eight days of rain, there's just nothing you can do.
"We rely a lot on the drainage, but unfortunately when there's so much rain, the drainage can't cope. The water table's really high anyway so it's not draining away."
It is the first time since 1967 that play on every day of a Championship match has been lost at the ground.
It was dry at Headingley on Monday, but the outfield remained too wet for play
After no rainfall on the first two scheduled days, Essex assistant head coach Dimitri Mascarenhas questioned the commitment to getting play on.
"The players are champing at the bit to get out there," he told BBC Essex at the end of the third day.
"As you've seen, there's not many people out on that ground trying to make it playable. Nobody's really doing anything to move it along, they're just waiting."
Defending champions Essex will hope to get their season started at home against Lancashire on Friday while Yorkshire are due to host Nottinghamshire at Headingley on the same day.
"We should be fine because the forecast is good for the week," said Yorkshire coach Andrew Gale. "Someone told me it's going to be warmer than Ibiza this week!
"That's the sort of weather we need to dry the ground off. If that comes, we'll be fine. I am confident it will go ahead.
"The outfield has got better, but only slowly. We just haven't had any drying weather."

Division Two
Kent 64 & 153 v Gloucestershire 110 & 108-5
Gloucestershire (19 pts) beat Kent (3 pts) by five wickets
Gloucestershire scored the 47 runs needed to beat Kent by five wickets, despite a mini-collapse at Canterbury.
Resuming day four on 61-1 with a target of 108, the visitors lost three wickets in eight balls to leave them 84-4.
But Benny Howell's 52 not out saw them to 108-5 and victory before lunch - with Kent's Matt Henry claiming 3-37.
Kent never recovered from being bowled out for 64 on Saturday after day one was washed out, as the pace bowlers dominated throughout.

Warwickshire 299 & 87/3 v Sussex 374
Match drawn

Sussex's South African all-rounder David Wiese made the first County Championship century of the summer.

But that was the only final-day high spot at Edgbaston as Warwickshire's rain-ruined home game with Sussex petered out into a draw.

Any hopes of a home win ended when, from their overnight 194-6, Wiese (106) and Ben Brown (91) shared a 155-run stand to help Sussex reach 374.

But Dom Sibley reached 42 before a draw was agreed with the Bears on 87-3.

That was after Sussex's Indian Test star Ishant Sharma, on his debut, had bagged the wickets of England duo Ian Bell and Jonathan Trott in a pacy spell from the Pavilion End.

Earlier, Olly Stone had taken two more Sussex wickets to improve his already career-best figures to 8-80 on his home Championship debut, including Wiese, just 14 balls after he had completed his first century in England.

Although frustrated by the loss of 150 overs because of rain in the match, it meant a happy start to the summer for the England prospect after his lost year spent recovering from a career-threatening knee injury, incurred prior to his move to Edgbaston from Northamptonshire.

Sussex captain Brown also shone, with an assured 91 in his first innings as county captain against a Warwickshire attack which, Stone apart, looked understandably rusty, having not had a single full day in the field as eight of the nine days in their pre-season schedule were lost to rain.

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