Two things happened in county cricket on Tuesday afternoon, and between them they said most of what needs saying about the County Championship title race as it enters its endgame. Somerset signed a New Zealand Test batter for the run-in. Keith Barker, 39 years old and 17 seasons deep, accepted that his knee had won and retired on the spot. One club buying time; one cricketer running out of it.
The Championship resumes on Thursday after the Hundred-shaped pause in the schedule, with six rounds left and a Division One table so congested that BBC Sport counts just 11 points between the top six. Somerset are second, five points behind leaders Nottinghamshire. Which is precisely why, this week, the race is being fought in the recruitment office rather than in the middle.
The County Championship title race is being restocked
Somerset, still chasing a maiden Championship, have brought in Henry Nicholls for the final six matches. The 34-year-old left-hander has 3,358 runs at 39.50 from 60 Tests for New Zealand and more than 9,000 first-class runs at 42.51; BBC Sport notes he made a century at The Oval in June against England. He should be available when Somerset host Essex at Taunton on Thursday.
“I’m looking forward to the challenge of trying to help Somerset win their first County Championship title,” Nicholls told the club website. “I’ve played in England before, so I know how much red-ball cricket means.” Director of cricket Andy Hurry called him “a batter of genuine quality”.
Surrey, seventh with 91 points from eight matches according to ESPNcricinfo, have moved for the opposite reason: subtraction. Will Jacks has been managing an ankle problem all summer and Dan Lawrence has been recalled to the England squad for Joe Root’s first Test back as captain. Their answer is India’s Mahipal Lomror, 26, who averages 42.62 from 63 first-class matches and bowls left-arm spin, on a six-match deal starting at home to Nottinghamshire.
“With the loss of Lawrence and Jacks’ ability to bowl spin, it was important to add a batter who can bowl some overs of spin when required for the final stage of the season,” said Surrey’s director of men’s cricket, Alec Stewart.
Division Two, and the men heading for the exit
The promotion race has its own arithmetic problem. Northamptonshire, third and two points behind second-placed Kent, lose Nathan McSweeney for their last three fixtures to an Australia A tour of India. He is their leading Championship run-scorer with 589 runs at just under 50, and has been central to a season that already includes the T20 Blast title. Harry Conway, who took 34 wickets in an eight-game spell earlier in the summer, returns in his place.
“It’s a big loss because he’s been such a good player and a leader,” head coach Darren Lehmann told BBC Sport. “He wants to go out with a bang.”
Barker’s departure is more final. He returned this season to Warwickshire, where he began in 2009, after seven years at Hampshire, and managed only two Championship appearances before the knee intervened. He leaves with 5,554 first-class runs at 28.33 and 544 wickets at 25.00 from 171 matches, plus a Championship medal from 2012. “In my head I still want to compete,” he said. “Unfortunately, after a long career and plenty of injuries, my body is telling me it’s time.” Glamorgan’s Chris Cooke, 40, follows him out at season’s end after 16 years and 8,766 first-class runs.
Silverware still on the table
There is a one-day final to settle too. Leicestershire and Middlesex came through their semi-finals against Durham and Nottinghamshire to set up a One-Day Cup decider at Trent Bridge next month, the Guardian reports. Neither is a fashionable name; both found a way through a competition the game never stops arguing about.
All of which is county cricket in mid-August: a title within reach of half a division, promotion hanging on two points, and a 39-year-old seamer clearing his locker on the day two clubs filled theirs. Barker, an England under-20 footballer before he chose cricket, gave the game 17 years and won a Championship in 2012. Six rounds from now, somebody else will have one.
