The pavilion at Exeter CC has been opened not by cutting a ribbon but by ringing a bell as lustily as I could manage. Chris Rogers, now captaining Somerset, played for Exeter in 2003 and, as it happens, he could have popped down the road, rung the bell and not missed out on batting for his new county.
A game of cricket started thereafter and among those bowling for Exeter was Alfonso Thomas, who is their professional/coach this year and Ben Green, the England Under-19 all-rounder, who will have a very handy mentor alongside him.
There was, I have gathered, two hours of relatively humdrum play in the morning. Alex Davies went early, Steven Croft late in the session only six runs short of his hundred. So
Lancashire do not have any centurions but they do have 372-6.
It has been raining, so the players never appeared after lunch; it’s now stopped; the teams, we have been informed, are taking an early tea after which the umpires will make an inspection. So there should be some more cricket, which I promise to watch intently.
First impressions count for a lot in this game. A trained eye can spot in a single movement of a batsman whether he has the right rhythm or whether a bowler just looks right. This was the first time I have been able to see Jake Ball and unequivocally he can bowl. His performance in the first hour at Trent Bridge this morning, in which he took the wickets of Adam Lyth, Gary Ballance and Joe Root, the first and last of them for golden ducks, could well be enough to see him in the England squad for the first Test. In the squad, that is, not to play, for that will be down to Broad, Anderson and Finn – but it is quite a step up.
Lyth went to the first ball of the day, well pitched up and moving across him, so that it might have been missing off stump. But Ballance and Root, caught at the wicket and superbly taken at first slip respectively both got excellent deliveries. At 24 for 3 Yorkshire were in a mess and it has been down to Alex Lees and Jonny Bairstow since to repair the damage. Lees is still there at lunch with 69, a determined innings, and Bairstow made 29 before he was beaten by Gurney’s inswing from round the wicket, and was lbw. At 122 for four there is still a lot of work for Yorkshire in pursuit
of Nottinghamshire’s 261.
The floodlights have been on for a while though and the dark clouds are gathering to the west. The covers are on and it looks as if there will be a drop in the not too distant future.
Updated
Here are six observations from the week’s county cricket action from Gary Naylor.
It is quite bright in Nottingham this morning, with a bit of watery sun, an improvement on first thing when the cloud hung heavy. I was out very early for a run which included an entertaining game of Dodge-The-Drunk on the way up the Mansfield Road. I had the smug satisfaction of knowing that they will feel like shit later and I won’t.
There is a bit of rain forecast to arrive after lunch, but it could be an entertaining morning as Yorkshire begin their innings. These are the sort of conditions in which Stuart Broad revels and he could be a handful, particularly on a pitch that will suit his best wicket-taking length. So it could be a challenge for those Yorkshire batsmen who are looking to impress, Adam Lyth, who nonetheless will almost certainly not be opening with Alastair Cook in the first Test, and Gary Ballance, the spell-check nightmare, who almost certainly will be James Taylor’s replacement at number five.
Earlier this morning, post-run, I was in Cafe Nero having a pot of porridge and a coffee, and wanting to read online ( buy the paper? Two quid? How much?!!!!) what Vic had to say about the Lancashire-Somerset game. Regrettably, the Wi-Fi connection blocked him, saying among other things it was likely “ to cause offence in a public place”. It is not like Vic to be overly raunchy. But it has been known for pieces including ‘sex’ to be blocked on occasions, which is unfair on Middlesex ( yes it really has happened), but reading Vic at the ground it all seems pretty harmless in that regard. In fairness to Cafe Nero, it transpired the connection was from the Waitrose next door, so maybe there was some implicit criticism of the ending of their sponsorship of the England team. They then blocked the Guardian website in its entirety, so all a bit prissy really.
Meanwhile, Vic is opening a new pavilion at Exeter CC today, which I think means cutting a ribbon rather than establishing a new outlet for the Vic Marks Pavilion franchise, so won’t be on duty at Taunton until a bit later.
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