Vitality County Championship Round 4, Day 1 - April 26th - Live Cricket Streaming, Latest Scores, Match Reports – All Matches – Division 1 and 2

Here are all the latest scores, match reports and news for the Vitality County Championship Round 4 April 26th – 29th 2024.

Friday 26th April 2024

Division 1

Durham vs Essex, 16th Match, Vitality County Championship Division One

Colin Ackermann made his first century for Durham as the home side shared the spoils with Essex on the first day of their Vitality County Championship match at the Seat Unique Riverside.

The former Leicestershire skipper showed exemplary patience in making 112, a 294-minute innings that formed the bedrock of his side’s 358 all out. The Essex openers safely negotiated the last two overs of the day to finish on five without loss.

The visiting bowlers stuck to their task well on a pitch that encouraged fast scoring. Sam Cook took three for 60 and Jamie Porter, three for 57, but the visitors would probably have enjoyed a much better day had they not dropped Ollie Robinson on 26 and Ackermann on 90, when the Yorkshire loanee Harry Duke put down a sharp chance off Matt Critchley.  

As it was, both David Bedingham and Robinson made fifties with the latter’s 90 being his fifth consecutive first-class half-century this season     

But the day had begun badly for Durham, who lost both openers for single figures inside the first half-hour of play. Scott Borthwick edged Porter wide to Duke’s right but the wicketkeeper took a superb one-handed catch. Next over, Alex Lees was adjudged caught by Duke off Cook but the ex-England batter appeared astonished by the decision.

Those dismissals left Durham poorly placed on 11 for two but the next hour’s play belonged largely to Bedingham, who hit seven fours and a six in reaching a fifty off 47 balls and had made 52 of the 73 runs in his second-wicket partnership with Ackermann when he was bowled by a magnificent ball from Porter which angled in before straightening to beat a blameless forward-defensive shot.  

Undaunted by this reverse, Ackermann and Robinson continued to score freely and Durham reached lunch on 129 for three after 29 overs.

Robinson began the afternoon session by hitting Cook’s first two deliveries to the backward point boundary but he was then dropped on 26 off the third when Shane Snater put down a straightforward chance at point, Undeterred, Robinson cover-drove the last ball of the over to the cover boundary and continued to bat with immense fluency, reaching his fifth consecutive half-century of the season off 48 balls, having hit 11 boundaries.

The dominance of Durham’s batters was maintained when Ackermann, who had played the anchor role admirably, reached his fifty off 117 balls and after 164 minutes of selfless concentration. However, just when a century beckoned for Robinson, he misjudged a routine push on the leg side off Harmer, gave a simple catch to Nick Browne at midwicket.

Four overs later, Harmer bowled Graham Clark for three with a classic off-spinner and four overs after tea Cook brought one back  to have Brydon Carse leg before wicket for 18, but Ackermann’s patient accumulation continued and he reached three figures off 199 balls with a back-foot cover-drive off Harmer. It was only his seventh boundary

Just over half an hour later Ackermann fell to the new ball when Cook had him leg before wicket and the session improved for the visitors when Paul Coughlin pulled Porter straight to Browne at a shortish wide mid-on and departed for 30. Snater took the final two wickets to fall but not before Durham had collected a third batting point.      

 

Surrey vs Hampshire, 17th Match, Vitality County Championship Division One

A dramatic opening day at the Kia Oval, dominated by swing and seam, ended with Ryan Patel and Rory Burns guiding Surrey to 123 for five after they had earlier dismissed Hampshire for 151.

Patel, coming in to join Burns with Surrey stuttering at 44 for four, unfurled some regal strokes in his 41 from 94 balls while opener Burns dropped anchor in nuggety fashion against the moving ball to reach an unbeaten 39 in almost three and a half hours’ batting. Together they put on 75 in 25 overs before Patel was bowled by one from Mohammad Abbas that kept wickedly low.

Hampshire, who finished third last season, have been one of Surrey’s closest challengers as they have won successive titles in the past two years, but they have still struggled on this ground in recent times. After being put in, Hampshire would no doubt have been thinking of the three heavy defeats they have suffered previously at the Oval in April in 2021, 2022 and 2023.

But they fought back strongly with the ball despite their first innings demise against the Surrey quicks, with Dan Worrall, Jordan Clark and Gus Atkinson finishing with three for 44, three for 29 and three for 40 respectively.

Kyle Abbott plucked Dom Sibley’s off stump out of the ground in the second over of Surrey’s reply, the former England Test opener going for four, and James Fuller then forced Ollie Pope to play on for 13 as he attempted to withdraw his bat from an outswinger.

Jamie Smith, keeping wicket in this game with Ben Foakes rested on England management orders, was bowled on the stroke of tea for 13 by another beauty, this time from Brad Wheal, and Abbott returned after the interval to have Dan Lawrence leg-before for two with a ball that shaped back into his pads.

At the start of the day, Surrey’s first wicket took only eight balls to arrive, Fletcha Middleton edging Worrall to second slip immediately after nicking the bowler’s first delivery of the match through the cordon for four, and for a while Ali Orr took the fight back to the champions with some lovely strokes against the new ball

On 26, however, Orr flicked Clark’s third ball to square leg and soon Hampshire’s innings was in disarray as Worrall dismissed James Vince and Tom Prest with successive balls in the last over of a superb seven-over opening spell of three for 21.

Vince, undone by a leg-cutter that was pitched just a little bit shorter than the previous two deliveries that he had met with the middle of his bat, edged to second slip on five while Prest was caught at third slip as he pushed defensively at a perfect out-swinger.

Liam Dawson calmly punched Worrall’s hat-trick ball through mid on for two but on three he was beaten  by Atkinson’s pace and bounce and edged to first slip.

Clark then surprised Ben Brown with some extra bounce, as he continued an eventual eight-over spell from the Pavilion End, and the Hampshire keeper’s attempted pull merely resulted in a spliced easy return catch.

Nick Gubbins, who had survived a sharp high catch to first slip off Clark when nine – the flashed edge flying through Sibley’s upstretched fingers and away for four – was then joined either side of lunch by Fuller in a defiant partnership of 61 in 17 overs.

On 91 for six at the interval, Hampshire were happy to see Gubbins and Fuller steady the ship until the former was bowled for 45 by a fine inswinger from Kemar Roach, operating from around the wicket to the left-hander.

Then, eight runs later, Fuller was gone too for a punchy 39 from 55 balls when he uppercut Atkinson to deep cover where Roach ran in ten yards to take an excellent sprawling catch.

And, when Wheal edged Atkinson behind on 12 and Abbott mishit Clark to Roach at long on, Hampshire had been bowled out in 44.4 overs.

Warwickshire vs Nottinghamshire, 18th Match, Vitality County Championship Division One

Worcestershire vs Somerset, Match 19, Vitality County Championship Division One

Tom Banton continued his upturn in form to hold the Somerset innings together after West Indies all-rounder Jason Holder had threatened to put Worcestershire in a position of strength on day one of the Vitality County Championship encounter at Kidderminster.

Holder, available for the first five Championship matches, produced another devastating spell with the ball as he found the ideal length and backed up the excellent bowling throughout the day of Joe Leach and Matthew Waite.

He had dismissed Durham’s David Bedingham, Graham Clark and Paul Coughlin in quick succession on the opening day of last week’s fixture at Chester Road.

Holder repeated that success by sending back Andrew Umeed, James Rew and Lewis Gregory in the space of 12 deliveries immediately before tea to reduce Somerset to 181 for six.

But Banton ensured there was no complete collapse by the visitors and produced a series of glorious strokes and brutal hitting in making 92 from 140 balls.

He had managed only 46 runs from his first four Championship innings of the summer but found his touch with 83 against Nottinghamshire at Taunton last week.

His knock, plus some late order big hitting by Migael Pretorious, enabled Somerset to recover and claim two batting points before declaring late in the day.

Jake Libby and night-watchman Adam Finch safely negotiated five overs.

Worcestershire rested leading wicket-taker Nathan Smith, who had played in the opening three games, and handed a first start of the season to left armer, Ben Gibbon.

Kashif Ali, who scored two centuries against Warwickshire at Edgbaston in the opening game, returned after recovering from a back problem in place of spinner Josh Baker.

Somerset rested Craig Overton and there was a return to the side for Kasey Aldridge, their leading wicket-taker with 10 at 14 runs apiece, and a first start of the campaign for Andrew Umeed.

Worcestershire batter, Brett D’Oliveira, won his first toss of the campaign and put the visitors into bat on a wicket with a bit more grass than last week’s game versus Durham.

It was a move that should have paid dividends in the first over during an impressive spell from Joe Leach but first slip Adam Hose put down Sean Dickson before he had scored.

It did not prove a costly miss as Dickson fell lbw for 16 in Waite’s first over.

Dickson took a stride forward and aimed a stroke to leg but he was undone by a delivery which straightened on him.

Matt Renshaw was initially given a searching examination by Matthew Waite but gradually opened up with two boundaries off the former Yorkshire player.

But the return of Gibbon led to a second breakthrough as Renshaw (30) was squared up by a testing delivery and Adam Hose held onto a low chance at first slip.

Leach returned to the attack after lunch and picked up some tangible rewards for his earlier efforts as Tom Lammonby drove hard and perished to a sharp catch by Holder at second slip.

New batter Tom Banton was beaten twice in an over from Waite as Worcestershire searched for further success.

It was Holder who struck just before tea when Andrew Umeed, having battled away for two and a half hours for 47, pushed forward and keeper Gareth Roderick did the rest.

It left Umeed three runs short of registering his first ever first class half century for Somerset.

James Rew (3) then nibbled at a Holder delivery and provided Roderick with another catch and it became three wickets in 12 balls for the all-rounder when Lewis Gregory played back and was lbw.

Worcestershire tried to press home the advantage after tea and there was a second deserved wicket for Waite as Kasey Aldridge (9) went lbw to a delivery angled in.

But Banton continued to play with aggression and freedom and a four to third man enabled him to complete a 91 ball half century.

Pretorious decided ultra aggression was the best policy and raced to 49 off 34 balls before the new ball denied him a half century, the safe hands of Holder low down at slip accounting for an edge off Leach.

Banton looked set for a century but on 92 he pushed Gibbon to mid off and failed to beat D’Oliveira’s direct hit to the non striker’s end.

 

Division 2

Gloucestershire vs Middlesex, 13th Match, Vitality County Championship Division Two

Gloucestershire seamer Marchant de Lange notched his 350^th first class wicket in claiming six for 49 to skittle Middlesex for 203 on the opening day of the Vitality County Championship Second Division match at Bristol.

The 33-year-old South African only took six Championship wickets in the whole of last summer, his first with Gloucestershire, which saw his season ended in early June by a thigh injury that required surgery.

Now fit and firing again, de Lange bowled 16 rapid overs from the Ashley Down Road End and ripped through the heart of the Middlesex batting, only Josh De Caires (37) and former Gloucestershire all-rounder Ryan Higgins (30) showing much resistance.

By the the time bad light ended play 6.2 overs early, the home side had replied with 82 for three, Ollie Price making 33 and Miles Hammond 25 not out.

For a time at the start of the day it looked a good toss for Middlesex to have lost as Mark Stoneman and Nathan Fernandes took advantage of unusually short boundaries at the Seat Unique Stadium to put together an opening stand of 55 in 14 overs.

Then three wickets fell in the space of 18 balls. Stoneman was bowled between bat and pad by Zaman Akhter for 29, Max Holden edged a high slip catch to Price off de Lange and Fernandes, on 24, nicked through to wicketkeeper James Bracey to become de Lange’s 350^th victim in his 104^th first class game.

Leus du Plooy and Higgins did their best to steady the Middlesex ship and took the score to 105 for three at lunch. But soon after the interval du Plooy attempted to withdraw the bat from a Dom Goodman delivery and feathered a catch through to Bracey.

Stephen Eskinazi survived a couple of edges into the slip cordon, but had made only 11 when being taken at gully driving at Goodman to make it 127 for five. On the same score, Higgins edged a defensive back-off shot off de Lange to Cameron Bancroft at second slip.

Bancroft held another slip chance on a cold overcast afternoon to send back Jack Davies and give de Lange his fourth wicket, but De Caires and Tom Helm then managed to arrest the slide with a stand of 58 inside 16 overs.

The return of de Lange accounted for both, Helm bowled leg stump by a full delivery for 22 and De Caires falling to catch at mid-wicket off a top-edged pull shot in the same over. Henry Brookes departed to the left-arm spin of Gloucestershire skipper Graeme van Buuren, offering a stinging return catch, and Middlesex had been bowled out inside 60 overs on a pitch offering no more than routine first day seam movement.

Gloucestershire’s reply got off to a poor start when Chris Dent, due to rest a back injury, but called into the side when Zafar Gohar was injured in the warm-up, was bowled for three by a full delivery from Ethan Bamber.

Bantcroft and Price both needed moments of fortune in adding 38 for the second wicket before Bancroft dragged a wide delivery from Higgins onto his stumps and fell for 12. With the light closing in, Price was caught behind fending at a short ball from Helm and Middlesex had gone some way towards making up for a poor batting display.

Leicestershire vs Northamptonshire, 14th Match, Vitality County Championship Division Two

Half-centuries from Emilio Gay, George Bartlett and skipper Luke Procter enabled Northamptonshire to shade the opening day of their Vitality County Championship match against Leicestershire, where they finished on 337  for six.

Gay’s 88 from 110 balls was the day’s most eye-catching batting performance but Bartlett’s unbeaten 71 and Procter’s 64 from 164 had much to commend them for grittiness as the home side’s bowlers, while expensive in the morning, did eventually make them work hard for their gains.

Scott Currie and Tom Scriven finished with two wickets each but on-loan seamer Ben Green was unlucky not to have any success, while England leg-spinner Rehan Ahmed, returning to county duty for his second appearance of the season, was impressively difficult  to score against.

Gay was the dominant figure in a morning session in which Northamptonshire were the clear winners. Leicestershire, who also recalled Matt Salisbury for the injured Ben Mike, made only one breakthrough after skipper Lewis Hill had won the toss.

The home attack struggled with length and line at times and both Gay and opening partner Ricardo Vasconcelos, both of whom have started the season well, hungrily took advantage. If there was something for the bowlers in a green-tinged pitch it largely proved elusive. Northamptonshire were 60 without loss inside the first hour.

By lunch they had 128 on the board but had surrendered one wicket, Vasconcelos losing his off stump to an inswinging ball from Scriven but Gay, though a little streaky on two or three occasions, particularly against Scriven, had looked in serious trouble only when Currie backed up a brilliant stop at third slip with a shy at the stumps that would have run him out for 41 had it hit.

The 24-year-old left-hander cashed in two matches ago with a career-best 261 against a Middlesex attack struggling with the Kookaburra. He reached 52 from 61 balls and looked good for a sixth career hundred here. However, after increasing his boundary count to 16, he fell on 88 soon after lunch when Currie pushed one through with some extra pace and bowled him off an inside edge.

The visitors suffered another blow when their Indian Test batter Karun Nair, who also has a double-hundred under his belt this season, was dismissed for 18, Salisbury finding a thin outside edge to have him caught at first slip, via the gloves of ‘keeper Ben Cox.

Leicestershire bowled with better control in the middle session than they had before lunch, with Currie in particular bowling some impressive spells that deserved more success. Yet they found themselves up against two solid adversaries in Northants skipper Procter and winter signing Bartlett, who had added 66 in a little under 20 overs when tea arrived at 242 for three, Procter having posted his fourth fifty-plus score in five innings.

With Ahmed growing to his task as a foil, giving little away from the pavilion end, and Currie continuing to bend his back at the Bennett End, pressure continued to build on the fourth-wicket pair after tea and it was Ahmed who eventually split them, bowling Procter with a ball the left-hander shaped to cut but did not sit up for the shot.

Leicestershire made the visitors work hard for their runs but not once in the day did a breakthrough prompt a flurry of quick wickets. Bartlett now had James Sales for company, and another 46 runs were chipped out before the new ball brought a second wicket for Scriven, who found the edge with a beauty, Louis Kimber taking a good, low catch at first slip. Bartlett, meanwhile, had completed his first half-century for his new county from 114 balls, but Northamptonshire lost Saif Zaib before the close, well taken by Cox off Currie.

Yorkshire vs Derbyshire, 15th Match, Vitality County Championship Division Two

England duo Joe Root and Harry Brook shared an entertaining and unbroken fourth-wicket partnership of 71 as Yorkshire dominated Derbyshire on day one of the Vitality County Championship clash at Headingley.

Root and Brook came together during the afternoon with the score at 205 for three after Yorkshire had been inserted at the start of this Division Two fixture, and they built on the early good work of in-form opener Adam Lyth, who made 97, to help their county close the day on 276 for three from 59 overs. 

When bad light intervened just before 4pm - there was no further play as rain followed - Root was 65 not out and Brook 44. 

Root was accumulative in 99 balls and Brook much more aggressive - savage even - in 37 against a wilting Derbyshire attack, frustrated by four dropped catches either side of lunch, including Lyth on 22 and 80.

All of the catches went down behind the wicket, three in the slips, and it could have been a completely different story had Derbyshire been able to expose Yorkshire’s superstar duo to a much newer ball.

The two counties came into this fixture level on 28 points after three games towards the foot of the table. Yorkshire had drawn two and lost one, the latter against Middlesex at Lord’s last week. Derbyshire had drawn all three.

Batting conditions were not easy - overcast conditions and movement through the air and off the pitch

Despite creating chances, Derbyshire weren’t at their best with the ball, offering up too many boundary opportunities. 

Their former overseas player Shan Masood, Yorkshire’s captain, hit 10 fours in a 25-ball 40, for example.

The first wicket to fall had a whiff of controversy about it. Fin Bean was trapped lbw by Anuj Dal for 18 - 46 for one at the start of the 15th over - the ball after he had picked up three to long-on at the end of the previous over.

However, replays have shown that fielder Pat Brown slid into the boundary rope trying to save the boundary. But the call of three runs stood. Had it been given four, Bean would not have been on strike to ball he fell to.

In the grand scheme of the day, it mattered little as Bean’s opening partner Lyth led the way on Yorkshire’s dominant day.

Lyth was strong on both sides of the wicket in hitting 15 fours in 157 balls, narrowly missing out on a third century in four Championship matches this season when he edged Zak Chappell behind, leaving Yorkshire 205 for three in the afternoon.

Chappell was one of the Derbyshire bowlers taken to task by Pakistan Test skipper Masood during an action-packed morning. At one stage, he hit seven fours in 10 balls across two overs from Dal and Chappell, taking Yorkshire to 89 for one after 20 overs.

Masood then edged left-arm seamer Luis Reece’s second ball to second slip - 92 for two in the 22nd. 

From there, Lyth and Root shared 113 inside 27 overs for the third wicket. 

Root’s innings was in complete contrast to Masood’s. By the time the England man reached 40, for example, he had only hit two fours. 

Later on, Brook was even more aggressive than Masood. He drove with power and precision and lofted Reece for a straight six. It was certainly a Bazball type innings.

Not that Root was completely becalmed. Having reached an 86-ball fifty during the latter stages of the afternoon, he reverse swept Alex Thomson’s off-spin for four.

The weather came less than two overs later, at least giving Derbyshire some respite.

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