Billy Root upstaged the return to county cricket of his brother Joe by making a century — and bringing up the milestone off the bowling of his elder sibling.
Billy, 28, scored his sixth first-class century as Glamorgan racked up 241 for four in their second innings against Yorkshire at Emerald Headingley, before the home side batted out for a draw. Billy moved to his three figures with a leg-side clip for two off the bowling of his brother, who had been brought into the attack to try to prevent him reaching the landmark.
The Sheffield-born brothers, who are two years apart in age, had previously played against each other only once in professional cricket, in a one-day match between Nottinghamshire and Yorkshire before Billy transferred to Cardiff from Trent Bridge in 2019.
After raising his bat to the players’ balcony, Billy and Joe exchanged a brotherly fist bump. Joe, the England Test captain, ended a disappointing match by being dismissed for 13 in the second innings, having only made 16 in the first.
Elsewhere in the first round of County Championship matches, Somerset wrapped up a remarkable win over Middlesex at Lord’s, as an unbeaten seventh-wicket partnership of 98 between George Bartlett and Lewis Gregory helped them chase down a stiff target of 285. Having been 89 for nine in their first innings, Somerset fought back in the second innings to bowl Middlesex out for 143 and began their chase on the final day on 112 for three.
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The Middlesex seamer Ethan Bamber took three wickets as Somerset slipped to 187 for six but Bartlett, who finished unbeaten on 76, and Gregory, who hit 62 not out, saw their team to an unlikely victory.
The 19 points they picked up in the match has helped to wipe out the eight-point deficit with which they started the season, having been penalised for producing a pitch with “excessive variations in bounce” in their match against Essex at the end of the 2019 season.
Snow showers in Northampton, Leeds, Manchester and Birmingham meant a premature finish to the final day’s proceedings, resulting in draws for Lancashire against Sussex, Warwickshire against Derbyshire, and Northamptonshire against Kent as well as the match at Headingley.
Bristol, however, escaped the worst of the inclement weather, allowing Gloucestershire to complete a superb eight-wicket victory over Surrey, getting to their target of 228 in only 37.1 overs thanks to Graeme van Buuren’s unbeaten 110 off 98 balls and Chris Dent’s 91 not out.
The results mean that three teams including Essex top Group One on 13 points, Hampshire top Group Two — only two points ahead of Gloucestershire — and Lancashire have a one-point lead over Northamptonshire in Group Three.
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Essex v Worcestershire: Day four report
Chelmsford (final day of four): Essex (13pts) drew with Worcestershire (12)
By Mark Baldwin
Those who oppose this season’s experimental conference-based County Championship always argue the benefits of the best playing the best in a two-division format. But, after this weekend, who would tell Worcestershire’s Jake Libby and Ed Barnard that they do not deserve the chance to do battle with Essex, the undisputed masters of red-ball cricket in recent years? Indeed, why shouldn’t all professional cricketers have an opportunity to test themselves against the best?
Worcestershire, remember, finished second from bottom in Division Two in 2019 and, for the past decade, have yo-yoed between the two divisions rather more than has probably been good for them. Across four days against Essex, however, they have demonstrated perfectly why this summer’s new championship structure has itself so many supporters, not least because the best v best element will still apply in September to determine the county crowned champions.
Libby, 28, batted for 11 hours and 21 minutes to carry his bat for 180 – a truly heroic effort after fielding for almost two days as Essex initially ran up 490. Barnard made 128 in a seventh wicket partnership of 244 in 92 overs and Worcestershire, with bat and ball, fully merited their eight draw points after reaching 475 themselves in reply. They will relish the return fixture at New Road later this month.
Before running into Libby and Barnard, however, it had all seemed like business as usual for Essex, county champions in 2019 and 2017, and winners of last year’s Bob Willis Trophy, who had won all 11 previous red-ball matches at their Chelmsford fortress, a remarkable run of success stretching back to September 2018.
Libby, who was on the field for the entire match, and Barnard dragged Worcestershire back from the depths of 43 for four, then 145 for six. Yesterday, by continuing their alliance for another 79 minutes, before eventually being parted at 389, they made sure there would be no final day turnaround on what remained an easy-paced pitch. Barnard, 25, whose highest previous first-class score was 75, has ambitions to bat in the top six as a genuine all-rounder, while Dillon Pennington’s assured 56 from No 10 was also a career-best.
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Barnard, on 112 overnight, was ultimately bowled through the gate, driving at a loopy Dan Lawrence off break. Joe Leach was almost immediately strangled down the legside to give Ben Allison, tall and fast-medium, his first Essex wicket, but Libby simply kept going.
The 28-year-old right-hander, who joined Worcestershire last year after six seasons at Nottinghamshire — including a loan spell at Northamptonshire in 2016 — batted with a rare dedication to crease occupation across 496 balls. Small and compact, he concentrated on determined defence although he did yesterday once allow himself to skip down the pitch to loft Simon Harmer’s off spin for six, and also hit 15 fours.
Overall, though, this was an innings which demonstrated why the 498 runs at an average of 55.33 he scored in the Bob Willis Trophy last year (second only on aggregate to Sir Alastair Cook) was certainly no fluke. Pennington, meanwhile, included some classy strokes through the offside in his ten fours. Worcestershire’s innings, which began late on Friday, lasted until just before 3.15pm.
That left Essex with ten overs’ batting practice before hands were shaken, time for Cook – who made only 15 in the first innings – to complete a forgettable game by being bowled through the gate by Leach, operating from around the wicket, for 12.
Nottinghamshire v Durham: day four report
Trent Bridge (final day of four): Nottinghamshire (13pts) drew with Durham (13)
By Neville Scott
Across a freezing nation on Saturday, several cricket pitches quietly slipped into slumber; with eight points now available for the draw, runs may prove this season’s inflated currency. This was one of four games where lower-order resurgence crucially shifted play, tails wagging when the ball grew soft.
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After late revivals in both sides’ first innings, the declaration just before play left David Bedingham and Ned Eckersley undefeated with hundreds in a new Durham fifth-wicket record of 254 unbroken runs. But Lyndon James, an elegant 22-year old in his third championship game, had ensured stalemate well before carrying his maiden fifty to an unbeaten 79 when the teams conceded the inevitable, 30 minutes from the close.
Set 396 to win, or 96 overs to survive (cut by afternoon snow to 92), Nottinghamshire again lost deceptive early wickets. With the new ball, Chris Rushworth, a sustained threat, kept the perfect line to remove Haseeb Hameed, out for a duck when bowled failing to cover off stump for the second time in the match, and Ben Duckett, leg before for 12.
From 21 for two, a counter-attack with relish against the South African Brydon Carse’s wayward pace, kept the target in touch but six consecutive maidens led to Joe Clarke’s fall for 38 to what became the last ball before lunch. By the time Rushworth, his bald head glinting in the sleet, was halted in mid-over for an early tea, only one more had gone.
Ben Slater, who oddly mixed two big hundreds with three ducks in his nine innings last year, looked set for a third until, pulling over a Scott Borthwick leg-break that hurried on low, he was trapped in front for 73.
Borthwick’s declaration in his first game as Durham’s new captain was rightly influenced by mayhem from both teams on the third day, 434 runs coming at 4.28 per over. And as five high-scoring draws in home games are realistically going to ensure roughly the same points as three wins and two losses on low-scoring result pitches, benign surfaces can be expected again.
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Five overs from the close, Steven Mullaney, a ball after pulling him for six, was bowled by Matt Salisbury for 69. Too little, too late. Enthusing about James, Slater said: “You’d have thought he’d played 50 or 60 games the way he went about it. It was all about trying to bat as many balls as possible, really”.
● Leicestershire have lodged a formal complaint with the ECB after the controversial dismissal of their batsman Hassan Azad during an innings defeat by Hampshire.
Azad was given out stumped in his team’s second innings after the wicketkeeper Lewis McManus knocked off the bails with his left hand while holding the ball in the air with his right hand, appealing for a caught behind. He was not recalled by Hampshire after it had become clear that the stumping had not been carried out.
The Leicestershire head coach Paul Nixon said he was “disappointed with what happened” and added: “It’s something we don’t want to see in our game.”
James Vince, the Hampshire captain, said his players “weren’t aware” of an issue at the time and that Azad would have been called back if it had been spotted.
“Lewis [McManus] is pretty down about how it looks but from his and our point of view we weren’t aware there was an issue until a few overs later,” Vince said.
The ECB will review the reports from the match officials and the video footage, and will then decide whether to take any disciplinary action against McManus.
He could be charged with breaking the Spirit of Cricket, which is part of both the laws of the game and the ECB’s code of conduct.