It was a good day for the England Test batting line up with Ben Duckett on the cusp of a double century for Nottinghamshire and runs for Harry Brook and Joe Root as the bat continued to dominate in county cricket.
Duckett was 197 not out at the close against Warwickshire, three runs short of the 8th double century of the season before the end of April. By contrast, last summer just six double centuries were scored across the entire summer.
For Notts alone, Duckett will be the second double centurion in a week if he knocks off the necessary runs on Saturday following Joe Clarke’s 213 against Somerset in the last round.
Duckett will be hoping for inclusion in England’s World T20 squad, due to be announced on Monday, but his selection will largely rest upon whether the management are worried about having a batting line up too heavily stacked with right-handers. The prevailing mood is to pick six hitters on small West Indian grounds and Duckett is not in that bracket in T20.
On a flat pitch at Edgbaston, Duckett tucked in to make his first hundred of the season, dominating the day with only two other batsmen passing fifty. Clarke, after three hundreds in a row to push him into England contention, was out for nought. Duckett hit 24 fours and scored in bursts with the bowlers really only threatening with the first and second new balls. Notts lost four wickets to the second new ball to finish on 367 for eight.
With teams now using the Duke ball instead of the Kookaburra, batting should be a little more challenging compared to the run fests in the first two rounds but apart from a green pitch at the Oval, it was generally batsmen in control.
England hopeful Ollie Robinson, who is in contention to keep wicket this summer in the Test side, made a quicker than run a ball 90 for Durham against Essex, his fifth half century of the season.
Root and Brook put on an unbroken 71 for the fourth wicket on a curtailed day at Headingley against Derbyshire. Root was 65 not out, his highest score of the summer so far, with Brook on 44, smashed off only 37 balls. Adam Lyth had earlier made 97 as Yorkshire dominated, reaching 276 for three when bad light stopped play. Yorkshire have had the luxury of picking their two England stars at the start of the season but are yet to win a game in division two.
Root, who did not play championship cricket at all last summer, has struggled to adapt to the slower pitches of county cricket, something he was critical of when England captain. It is not unusual for England players used to the pace of Test cricket to take time to adjust to medium pacers bowling with a Duke ball and keepers standing up.
“There’s never a motivation issue (coming back to county cricket). I do think there’s a different rhythm to the game (in county cricket) and different challenges you have to overcome to Test cricket. But that’s all part of the challenge and trying to be a good enough player to manage those different situations and positions within cricket,” said Root.
“You could almost look at it as flipping into a different format of the game. I don’t mean that as any disrespect. It’s just that the blunt truth of it is that there are different things you have to contend with. You don’t often get keepers stood up to the stumps to the seamers, and generally there’s more pace behind it as well (in Test cricket). We’ve had some poor weather and some very soft wickets because of it. Again, you have to be a good enough player to overcome that and find different ways to manage it.”
At the Oval two strong seam attacks relished a grassy pitch with good pace and carry. Gus Atkinson took three for 40 as Surrey ripped out Hampshire for just 151 before struggling themselves to 44 for four until Rory Burns, the only batsman to look comfortable all day, and Ryan Patel lifted them to 119 with a 75 run stand. Mohammad Abass bowled Patel with a ball that kept low, and in such conditions was almost impossible to score off, conceding just seven runs from 13 overs.
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