County Championship 2019: A season full of storylines

NICK FRIEND: A never-ending drama, a marathon of twists and turns, storylines of underachievement, of overachievement in whichever direction one dared to look

A contest that lasted 174 days. A campaign that began nearer Valentine’s Day than the summer solstice. A season that wrapped up closer to Christmas than the beginning of the World Cup. A cricketing year without parallel, without peer, without comparison.

And all with a County Championship title race to match, a two-way fight that so neatly mirrored the sport’s 2019 narrative. A denouement that never was, but one – at 4.20pm on Thursday – that might have outdone all that had come before. A promotion race that, for long parts of the season, held the interest of the league's vast majority.

A never-ending drama, a marathon of twists and turns, storylines of underachievement, of overachievement in whichever direction one dared to look.

Of Nottinghamshire, who invested heavily in youth and in some of the country’s finest batsmen, but then failed to win a game.

Of Warwickshire, so dependent on a few, but a magnificent few nonetheless: the wickets of Jeetan Patel, the surety of Sam Hain, the phenom of Dominic Sibley.

Of Surrey – last year’s champions but woefully inconsistent this time around, saved, in all honesty, by the inadequacies of those below them, though possessing – in Ollie Pope – a quite staggering talent.

Of Yorkshire, whose campaign sat somewhere between middling, disappointing and fascinating – revitalised by the skill of Keshav Maharaj and the tenacity of Gary Ballance, though never truly backed up.

Of Kent, who might have finished both higher and lower, who lost their captain to serious injury only for Sam Billings to return late on with the bit between his teeth, who introduced the world to the young duo of Ollie Robinson and Zak Crawley, and who starred – at least in the final weeks – Darren Stevens, quite literally a father figure to those youngsters.

Of Hampshire, who look a year or two from being a mighty force once again, with a batting lineup growing in experience and the wonderfully skilful Kyle Abbott, a man now with the freedom of Chelmsford and the animus of Taunton.

Of Somerset, frontrunners for so long, but undone ultimately by a lack of runs and penultimately by the vengeful tricks of Abbott.

Of Essex, battered in their first game but palpably the division’s best side by the time that the curtain finally came down.

^{Essex won their second County Championship title in three years}

Of Leicestershire, who failed to build on last year’s encouragement, winning just once in a difficult season, but who uncovered in the process Hassan Azad, a Karachi-born left-hander of tremendous calm, nous and patience.

Of Worcestershire, whose red-ball cricket was in stark contrast to their one-day exploits, and whose season was disrupted by flooding at New Road and a lack of consistent runs.

Of Middlesex, whose final position – just 26 points away from the wooden spoon – belies a squad full of international experience and undoubted talent.

Of Derbyshire, who were in the promotion picture for longer than their seventh-place finish suggests and who possess some fine players – Billy Godleman, Luis Reece, Wayne Madsen to name but three.

Of Sussex, who might have achieved more with a thrillingly talented squad, but whose leading light shines brighter every year; Ollie Robinson, whose 63 wickets came at 16.44.

Of Durham, for whom a slow start put pay to a late charge for an unlikely promotion, a county improving once again under new leadership after a period of ECB-enforced difficulty. The captaincy of Cam Bancroft – the very concept maligned before it began – proved successful enough that he will be back next year.

Of Glamorgan, so good for so long, but just short in the end – both beneficiary and victim of Marnus Labuschagne, high-class overseas player, whose absence was felt as keenly as his presence.

Of Northants, winless after five games, a side in disarray – the resignation of a captain, the appointment of a stand-in skipper. Months later, promoted. An extraordinary feat – a tale that will go under-told in the story of this most remarkable summer of cricket. A team indebted to a host of honest professionals who deserve far more headlines than they receive.

Of Gloucestershire, whose effort has been similarly remarkable, a club doing it the right way, who own Chris Dent – arguably county cricket’s most underrated batsman, and Ryan Higgins – very possibly the circuit’s most underdiscussed cricketer of any kind. With 958 runs and 50 wickets, he finished just 42 runs short of an historic double of his own.

And finally, of Lancashire. Relegated last year but clambering back at the first attempt. Unbeaten, unchallenged, the home of a tankard full to the brim with talented seamers, the stomping ground of Dane Vilas, a wicketkeeper and captain who has become one of the great Kolpak signings.

^{Dane Vilas starred for Lancashire in their promotion as Division Two champions}

It has, indeed, been some year. A crucial year – one viewed in all quarters as the most significant for some time; three promotion places, only the very worst side in Division One banished.

The opportunity for top-tier cricket spelt out before the very eyes of all those on the circuit, even if the competition was spread out and treated as collateral. That, in today’s stark reality, is the way of the world.

Red-ball domestic cricket exists as a means to an end, an inconvenience to schedulers, something that the rest of us must protect.

In this madcap summer, it has produced some fine cricket in spite of its challenges. Quite what happens next year is anyone’s guess; Ashley Giles has even suggested that some games could be played as a backdrop to The Hundred with reduced points up for grabs.

Giles, to his credit, however, has also made a point of redressing the power shift towards white-ball cricket in the English game.

Yes, it produced a team of world champions. But yes, it has seen the standard of England’s Test cricket diminish. By extension, it has left a dearth of top-level batsmanship in county cricket, where conditions at either extreme of the summer’s ends have made for an unenviable task.

That Essex finally came out on top on a dramatic final afternoon in late September was testament to the club’s possession of county cricket’s standout cricketer.

No bowler has taken more wickets in a season than Simon Harmer’s 83 since David Masters plugged away to claim 91 back in 2011.

There is a quite charming irony in Harmer and Essex – arguably county cricket’s finest signing this decade mixing in among a squad made up, almost to a man, of local fare.

Eight years on, Masters has long-since retired, but Harmer nonetheless found himself backed up by an array of homegrown seamers. Jamie Porter and Sam Cook combined for 80 wickets between them, while Peter Siddle – an early-season import – was a metronomic menace in picking up 34 scalps of his own.

With the bat, three of the division’s top 14 run-scorers were based at Chelmsford. County cricket’s knight of the realm, Sir Alastair Cook, ground out 913 runs, passing 50 on eight occasions.

There, perhaps, lay the difference. The most fascinating element of Somerset’s own title charge came in their lack of regular runs.

Nobody at Taunton averaged more than Tom Abell’s 31.50, while nobody scored more runs than his 756 – by no means a traditional route towards a first title in 144 years, even in a year when few truly flourished with the bat.

Of course, that title would never arrive for Somerset, nor for Marcus Trescothick, who bows out as one of the modern games's true greats. If the September rain put pay to any hope of a thrilling final week, then it was the previous round of fixtures that had put the wheels in motion for their fate. While Essex swept past a Surrey side well short of its best, Somerset ran into Abbott.

“Would I prefer to finish third or spoil Somerset’s party? I wanted to spoil the party by a long way,” the South African admitted after finishing with figures of 17 for 86 – the best in first-class cricket since Jim Laker’s 19 for 90 and the finest ever numbers recorded by a Hampshire bowler.

Somerset had celebrated their Royal London Cup win over Hampshire as well they might, but it acted as motivation for Abbott.

It was the week that swung the race, giving Essex a lead heading into a dreary weather forecast, but the kind of conditions that the organisers deserved, having gambled on finishing this prestigious competition so far beyond what is reasonable. An avoidable, inevitable shambles.

^{The truly vital shift in this long season came in the penultimate week, with Kyle Abbott taking 17 Somerset wickets in an extraordinary win on a green Ageas Bowl pitch}

At the other end of the spectrum, Nottinghamshire’s destiny seemed a long time in coming. Joe Clarke, Ben Duckett and Ben Slater all arrived before the season began, charged with supplying the runs for a side now injected with young blood.

Of the trio, only Clarke averaged in excess of 30, while more than 200 of his 621 runs came in the final game of the season – well after relegation had been confirmed. A chastening season for a squad so talented; semi-final appearances in both white-ball competitions were evidence of that fact, at least.

And then there was the season’s least likely plot – that of a 43-year-old allrounder told that he would be released at the end of his contract.

A quite remarkable month followed – three five-wicket hauls, two of which came against beleaguered Notts, followed by a quite staggering double-hundred at Headingley.

And now, here we are. Pen put to paper, Darren Stevens to remain at Kent for yet another year – 52 wickets, 597 runs this time around. Where does it end for this ageless force?

Elsewhere, there was Sibley, whose fine form over a year and a half has finally paid off in the form of an England call-up.

As Alex Wakely so rightly put it after the Warwickshire opener struck tons in both innings of the penultimate game of the season: “If Dom Sibley isn’t in an England shirt this winter then our domestic system is well and truly broken.”

The opener faced more than 1,000 more balls than anyone else in the division. Broken it may still be, but Sibley will rightly tour New Zealand. Only Nottinghamshire finished beneath Warwickshire, who were indebted to Sibley’s runs – and those of Sam Hain – for staying afloat.

It means that next year they will face Lancashire, Gloucestershire and Northamptonshire – all promoted from Division Two, making the most of this unusual season.

For Lancashire, this was perhaps a foregone conclusion of sorts; few teams to drop down a division have done so in recent times armed with such a battery of potency. James Anderson, Graham Onions, Saqib Mahmood, Richard Gleeson and the perennially underrated Tom Bailey – quite the quintet of seamers.

Matt Parkinson, when called upon in red-ball cricket, was the sprinkling of golden dust required as pitches became drier. In Dane Vilas, they have at their disposal a formidable leader, a man whose 1,036 runs came at an average of 79.69.

Hey, @englandcricket 👋

🐻#YouBears #WeAreEngland pic.twitter.com/wpSskxUA2t

— Warwickshire CCC 🏏 (@WarwickshireCCC) September 18, 2019

“If I set the challenge for the guys, you don’t just want to walk the walk,” he explained of his own form earlier this season. “You have to put your money where your mouth is.

“When you ask guys to do things and believe and trust in you, you’re never going to ask guys to do something you wouldn’t.

“I’m quite harsh on the guys. If they let down the team or they let themselves down, they’ll never turn on you to say, ‘You don’t do this or that’.

“It’s important to lead by example. That’s not just as a captain, it’s from the senior players as well.”

In the South African, Lancashire benefited not only from a senior player at the peak of his powers, but from one who was available throughout. That Vilas was ever-present should not be underestimated; Glamorgan would find out to their cost the other side of that conundrum.

When Marnus Labuschagne was plying his trade at Sophia Gardens through the first half of the summer, an unlikely promotion appeared to be the only plausible result; only Hassan Azad would score more runs than the Australian in Division Two, even after Labuschagne was forced to depart the Welsh side for Ashes duty.

He was replaced in Wales, first by Shaun Marsh, and then by West Indies’ Kraigg Brathwaite. And while Brathwaite battled to a century in the second of his three games, neither had the impact of a man who then proved so pivotal for Australia.

A successful campaign nonetheless for Glamorgan, for whom 2018 must now be little more than a dismal spec in the past.

That they missed out, however, opened a door for others. And, even if Essex are this year’s champions and were paraded through Sky’s only televised Championship match of the season, then both Northants and Gloucestershire provided equally touching narratives.

Neither side was widely fancied before the season began, while Northants – under Alex Wakely’s captaincy – found themselves rooted to the bottom of Division Two in June.

Wakely resigned to focus on his batting and Adam Rossington took over, temporarily at first. Their transformation in the three months since has been astonishing; in Ben Sanderson and Brett Hutton, they hold two of county cricket’s most relentless operators.

Sixty wickets this year for Sanderson, with 35 – in four fewer games – for Hutton. The pair are some partnership.

In Rossington, though, Northants may have had one of the country’s standout red-ball cricketers of 2019.

The wicketkeeper picked up 34 dismissals to sit alongside eight fifties and a batting average of 46.29, but his greatest impact came in his influence as a leader of a side that was struggling to trust itself, struggling to win.

“He's brought us all together and given us the confidence to win matches and believe in ourselves,” Wakely said of his successor.

“When you're on a losing run, you tend to over-analyse things and it's hard to snap out of it. But when you're winning, you just rock up to the next game and keep doing the same things.

“We were unable to turn good situations into wins during the early part of the season, but then it just clicked for us. I think it was a confidence thing. All of a sudden, we went into games believing we could win them, and that's made the difference.”

"WE ARE GOING UP, SAY WE ARE WE ARE GOING UP" 🍾🍾🥃🥃🥂🍻#GoGlos💛🖤 pic.twitter.com/iESCyDn022

— Gloucestershire Cricket🏏 (@Gloscricket) September 26, 2019

Northants collected the draw they needed, fittingly, against Gloucestershire, leading to one of the season’s more heartwarming episodes.

Both sides joined each other in the home changing room to celebrate their shared success – a remarkable achievement for Chris Dent, Gloucestershire’s red-ball captain.

Dent himself has enjoyed another stellar season; this the sixth time in seven years that he has passed 900 runs in first-class cricket.

And that image – of Gloucestershire and Northants settled together toasting each other’s success – might just be the perfect takeaway. The way it should be. Look after it.