County cricket: Essex and Surrey again look the teams to beat | Cricket

Ball one: Porter and co take away points

Three rounds later, Division One is starting to take on a familiar shape, led by the winners of all but one of the pennants awarded since 2016. Essex, the only side to pull off a win from the two Kookaburra rounds, rolled out a woeful Lancashire team to win by an innings at Chelmsford, their dominance illustrated by the fact that 11 visiting batters had twice each for a top score of 35 Essex's night watchman, Sam Cook made 49.

He used to lead a seaming effort that combined to leave just three scalps for Simon Harmer to collect (908 first-class wickets and counting). He, Jamie Porter and Shane Snater are at the peak of their powers, experienced, relatively injury-free and unlikely to miss games due to international call-ups, a big hand for skipper Tom Westley. With Porter the most expensive of the trio, paying 23.6 runs per wicket, Essex are taking the traditional route to success with the red ball, i.e. getting 20 wickets as quickly as possible. They're at the top of the table, so who can argue with them?

Ball two: Surrey is still hot

Perhaps Surrey, champions for the past two seasons, will. Rory Burns' men have taken a different approach to winning four-day matches and this was somewhat evident in their crushing victory over a spirited but ultimately outclassed Kent.

Surrey have excellent bowlers of their own, a pool of top class seamers, led by the consistent movement of Dan Worrall at a handy pace of over 80mph. But the club's priorities may be indicated by its reluctance to play a specialist spinner. In recent years Will Jacks has done his job and this season another batsman bowling, Cameron Steel, has come so far into the fold that his leg-breaks have yielded twenty wickets, remarkably the most of any bowler in the world . the country.

Nevertheless, Surrey's strategy, again illustrated in this match, is to play solid conventional knocks at the top of the order and then hand it over to the smitters from four to nine to pile up the runs that take the pressure off the scoreboard increase and create time for bowlers to hit their shots. wickets.

Dom Sibley and Dan Lawrence were both past their centuries and Surrey 96 led the way by the fall of their second wicket, the base from which the acceleration arrived to drive towards the declaration leaving Kent needing 299 to see the champions bat again. To their credit, they came closer than many expected. Matt Parkinson came in at a dazzling number eight and batted for almost three hours for a career best 39. But the Londoners shared the wickets among five bowlers while in the middle of their career. the first innings, got the job done and eventually achieved a full complement of 24 runs.

Ball three: Bedingham wide awake after breakthrough

Someone should tell David Bedingham that the County Championship cannot produce international cricketers. Actually, that's not entirely fair, as the 30-year-old South African's talents have been honed rather than developed over the course of his five years playing for Durham.

He looked completely at ease in his four Tests over the winter, a classy addition to his country's long list of middle-order strokemakers. He was bolder with the Worcestershire attack and played the crucial innings of the match, with his 99-ball 138 sending the home side's target to a fictional 458 in the fourth. He is currently one of the best hitters in world cricket and a player worth taking a journey with. reasonable distance to see considering he may not play much longer in this league.

However, it is Worcestershire who just make the journey and are forced to move from New Road to Kidderminster, which does not help either players or fans.

Ball four: Clarke rewrites the record books

With Jonny Bairstow's highest score in five Tests and one IPL season in India being just 42, this is not a bad time to present your credentials as a wicketkeeper-batsman (with due apologies to Ben Foakes who can be considered a subcontinental specialist) .

Joe Clarke, now a full-time red-ball keeper, has backed two centuries in the opening rounds with an unbeaten 213, part of a 392-run stand with Will Young (174 not out), scrapping the province's record third wicket stand. the books after 121 years. That partnership first got Nottinghamshire back into the game against Somerset and then established a strong position, but was rendered academic on the fourth day by rain in the West Country.

If Clarke's ban for bringing the game into disrepute five years ago is to be charged against him or if he is deemed not to have shown sufficient remorse for it, that should be made public as no selection ban was included in his sanction at the time. If not, he should be judged on his merits and build a strong case.

Ball five: Lam strengthens Sussex's lower order

The best game of the week saw Sussex squeak home against Gloucestershire in Hove. Both first innings followed similar patterns, as the visitors' 218-5 swelled to 417 all out before the home side made the same move, from 253-5 to 479 all out. Bowlers stepped up in the second dig, Ollie Robinson and Jayden Seales showing their Test pedigree with a combined 6-66 from 34.2 overs.

Cheteshwar Pujara posted an awkward 144 for victory and was always going to relish the challenge, but could Sussex, in the lower order, find a batsman to match India's Wall Mark II? Danny Lamb was the man for the job, adding a crucial 17 not out to his 83 in the first innings and previous scores of 134 and 41 this season, taking his 1,000 first-class runs to 33.4. He's a bit of a cheat code showing in six cases how Lancashire could have done with their academy product against Essex.

Ball six: some figures at Lords

As the temperature dropped below 10 degrees Celsius and the wind chill felt like it was in the single digits even in Fahrenheit, I felt for the primary school children who huddled in the stands as rain poured on much of the early play Lords washed away in the stands. Friday.

The sun provided a bit of warmth after lunch, but the one figure theme continued as the two players who their parents will have told them to look out for, Joe Root and Harry Brook, gathered five and three respectively, ready with balls that shot up and offered to move away from the right-handers. They were beaten in the V in the previous two rounds and hit a brutal tattoo on the boundary boards.

Somewhere a sad Yorkshireman was probably muttering something about real cricket as his team succumbed to defeat, with Middlesex finding enough batting backbone to get over the line, somewhat to the surprise of many supporters.