The Cricketer reflects on round one of the 2023 LV= Insurance County Championship season by nominating a standout XI after the first week of fixtures...
There were runs for both Kent openers in their win over Northamptonshire, with Zak Crawley's first innings 91 no less vital to Sam Billings' side.
But faced with a fourth-day chase against a wily seam attack, Compton peeled off his fifth County Championship hundred in 12 months and showed a different side to his game – it was by far and away his quickest century in the competition.
It was also a fifth consecutive match in which he's reached three figures, carrying on from where he left off from another productive winter in Zimbabwe. He finished unbeaten on 114, with 14 boundaries to give Kent the perfect start.
It was no surprise that it took Gloucestershire a while to ease into their work against Glamorgan, bowled out cheaply and then porous with the ball in the Welsh county's first innings on an increasingly flat surface. No county has endured a more disrupted pre-season, with the weather washing out an intersquad warmup and another friendly against Somerset. They managed just 60 overs in the field against Hampshire in their only action, having opted against going on tour.
In Marcus Harris, though, they have a quality overseas player with plenty to prove, with an Ashes spot potentially up for grabs in a couple of months. He had the recent form of a Sheffield Shield campaign to fall back on, and he began with a fighting half century before playing with more freedom in the second innings as his 192-ball 148 – alongside Chris Dent's 78 – set Gloucestershire up to comfortably save a game that looked to be heading away from them.
Graeme van Buuren later added a second hundred to the scorecard, with fifties for Miles Hammond and Tom Price, as they ended proceedings in the ascendancy.
Rishi Patel hit his maiden first-class century (David Rogers/Getty Images)
What a time to unleash your maiden first-class century. Leicestershire hadn't beaten Yorkshire at Headingley in the County Championship since before the World Wars, and they hadn't successfully chased down a score of this magnitude in the competition since 1947.
But Paul Nixon has spoken positively in the build-up to this season, and James Taylor has arrived as batting coach. Patel spent part of his winter in Mumbai, working with a coach at an academy on batting against spin, so it was fitting that he went to his hundred by slog-sweeping Dom Bess over midwicket.
His innings of 125, which featured three sixes, set Leicestershire on their way for a famous win, with his opening stand alongside the aggressive Sol Budinger putting on 80 in just 17.4 overs.
The Indian great is already etching in his name as an all-timer at Sussex, but this wasn't even one of his most emphatic hundreds for the county.
He has six centuries in 15 innings for the club, but this was the first to lead to a win. That was doubly important in his first match as full-time captain of the County Championship side, and in Paul Farbrace's first match as head coach.
Pujara didn't win this game on his own: Farbrace namechecked 21-year-old OlI Carter as his player of the match, for his performances in both innings and with the gloves, while Henry Crocombe and Fynn Hudson-Prentice both picked up four-wicket hauls. Nathan McAndrew, a replacement overseas for Jayden Seales, claimed five wickets in the first innings.
So, a team effort to begin the Farbrace era, but still led by the remarkable Pujara, who now averages 103.7 in first-class cricket for Sussex.
Dan Lawrence hit his first century since last May (Alex Davidson/Getty Images)
A couple of weeks ago, Handscomb didn't even have a county deal lined up for 2023.
But Abdullah Shafique's involvement with Pakistan's white-ball squads changed that, and the Australian was picked up as an initially underwhelming replacement.
Leicestershire are Handscomb's fifth county, following stints with Gloucestershire, Yorkshire, Durham and Middlesex. Truthfully, he has never enjoyed great success in the UK, certainly compared to his record back home. He scored 180 runs in Leicestershire's remarkable win over Yorkshire, more than a third of his entire haul for Middlesex over the course of 21 matches and two years.
Patel highlighted Handscomb's calmness at the crease, and it was no coincidence that he was at the non-striker's end when Chris Wright upper-cut the winning runs.
The difference between Essex and Middlesex was 97 runs, and Dan Lawrence made 105 in the first innings in a game where the highest total was just 266.
There was nothing particularly wrong with the pitch at Lord's, but the quality of bowling on both sides meant that batters never felt in and wickets fell in clusters.
But Lawrence, who was part of England's Test squad in New Zealand over the winter and is perhaps one of few on the outskirts of Brendon McCullum's side who could force their way in over the next months, found a way of neutralising the unerringness of Toby Roland-Jones and Tim Murtagh, skipping down the pitch to loft Roland-Jones over extra cover for six and occasionally repeating the shimmy, explaining afterwards that he is looking to catch bowlers off-guard, having watched the likes of Harry Brook and Joe Root in Christchurch and Wellington.
Although he didn't add to his Test career on the trip, he reckons his game has benefited from a new-found clarity. A match-defining ton in April – his first since last May – isn't a bad place to start.
Cam Steel made an unbeaten 141 for Surrey (Alex Davidson/Getty Images)
The England wicketkeeper insisted ahead of Surrey's season opener that he has learnt to blank out speculation about his international place, with Jonny Bairstow on the comeback trail and reportedly keen to keep wicket for Yorkshire on his return to fitness.
So, Foakes could hardly have quietened those theories any better than to churn out two contrasting, match-shaping scores at Old Trafford: 76 off 149 deliveries and 103 off 95. Faced with two different scenarios, he displayed the appropriate game for both.
His wicketkeeping has never been in doubt, but that was also in fine fettle, standing up to Jordan Clark, which helped to force the dismissal of Keaton Jennings.
Only playing because of Will Jacks' unavailability – both with a hip-flexor injury and an IPL deal – the Surrey allrounder, who was a top-order batter for Durham but has since rediscovered his leg-spin and converted into a middle-order option, made the most of a surprise opportunity.
Gareth Batty had several options, including the choice of playing a fifth seamer or a specialist spinner, but Surrey's success in 2022 was built around packing the lower order with allrounders and giving themselves a chance of building big totals.
Steel came to the crease at 164 for 5 and shepherded the lower order to a final score of 442; from being on the back foot, they spent the rest of the match bossing proceedings until Josh Bohannon's defiant day-four hundred. Steel's excellent match didn't end with his unbeaten 141, also dismissing Bohannon in the first innings with his leg-spin, which flourished over the winter as he was named player of the season in Western Australia's grade competition.
Mohammad Abbas took his hundredth Hampshire wicket (Ryan Pierse/Getty Images)
When Worcestershire lost Ed Barnard to Warwickshire, they threatened also to lose the entire balance of their red-ball side, which has been increasingly reliant on Barnard's runs – as much as his wickets, and his ability to bowl long spells – over the last few years. So much so that Barnard had missed just a single fixture across formats in the last four years prior to his move.
So, Waite's century down the order in his first game as a permanent Worcestershire player – he spent time at New Road on loan in 2022 – is a massive moment for the county, as much as the individual. He ended up with five wickets in the match for good measure.
He had only ever passed fifty twice in professional cricket prior to last week, but his unbeaten 109, which set up a terrific win over Mickey Arthur's much-fancied Derbyshire, sets the wheels in motion for him to make a similar move up the order as Barnard did.
The Essex seamer is one of the best on the circuit when he bowls like this, reducing Middlesex to 4 for 4 and 15 for 3 with the new ball in each innings, with Sam Cook working his magic at the other end.
By his own admission, 2022 was deeply frustrating for Porter, who claimed just 19 wickets in eight matches, suffered a series of niggles and lost his place to Shane Snater and Mark Steketee. But he has begun this season like a man possessed, with "a burning fire", as he put it afterwards, and a desire to make up for lost time.
He trapped Sam Robson in front, cleaned up Pieter Malan and had Stephen Eskinazi strangled down the legside in his first 10 deliveries of the season. He returned to have John Simpson caught at mid-on to complete a five-fer that was extremely popular among his colleagues, ending with six in the first innings and three more in the second.
Jamie Porter picked up nine wickets in Essex's win over Middlesex (Alex Davidson/Getty Images)
Amid the carnage of Abbas' latest demolition job was his hundredth wicket for Hampshire, reaffirming the county's status among the favourites for the title on account of the quality of their seam attack.
He picked up nine wickets in the match – six in the first innings, three in the second – including all of Nottinghamshire's top three on the first morning, with Ben Duckett caught behind and both Haseeb Hameed and Ben Slater edging to slip.
With Kyle Abbott and Keith Barker also up Hampshire' sleeve, you'd be brave to bet against James Vince's side at the very least coming close once again to that County Championship crown.
Chris Tremain, Rob Keogh, Josh Bohannon, Toby Roland-Jones, Sam Hain, Alex Davies, Jake Libby, Tom Price, Billy Root, Oli Carter, Dawid Malan, Finlay Bean
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