They’re going to use the Kookaburra cricket ball for the next couple of rounds of the County Championship. Why exactly?

Have you ever seen that godawful film where Nicolas Cage is a pilot and a bunch of people suddenly cease to exist?

Nic Cage films range from actually good to hilariously bad to very deliberately unhinged (the plastic teeth scene from Vampire’s Kiss will never fail to make us laugh). Left Behind, however, is an out-and-out bad film that is not even redeemed by comic overacting.

There’s a bit in it where Cage’s character is piloting a plane that is flying directly towards another plane. The second plane has no pilots because they’ve both ceased to exist. Cage realises he’s on a collision course a pretty reasonable time in advance and tries to take evasive action. Somehow he fails to completely miss the other plane and there’s a glancing blow.

Are we mad or do commercial aircraft not actually manoeuvre like ocean liners? Cage must have steered about four feet in the space of a mile.

That is how much swing you get with a Kookaburra cricket ball.

Is that a good thing?

If you’re a batter, yes. If you’re a fast-medium bowler, no.

But the decision to use Kookaburra balls is not really about being nice to batters. It’s about making life more difficult for the kinds of bowlers who traditionally thrive in county cricket. Why? To see who can rise to the challenge.

There’s a general assumption that a less responsive ball works out better for faster bowlers and certain types of spinner because those styles of bowling become the only realistic ways to get people out.

But it doesn’t exactly work out like that. Glenn McGrath always did quite well out of being tall and landing it on a postage stamp. Vernon Philander had a lot of success without even bothering with the ‘being tall’ bit.

Really only one thing’s for sure: if you’re going to bowl with a Kookaburra ball, you’d better be good at something.

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After securing a big win over Kent on Saturday, Surrey are even more top of the County Championship. This should be no great surprise being as they’re reigning County Champions, but it’s still not entirely clear to us how they’re achieving this.

Last week the gap between Surrey and second-placed Warwickshire had expanded from zero points to three. It’s now 25 – in large part because Warwickshire forgot to play, but also because Surrey managed a 10-wicket win.

Whenever we look at a scorecard for the first time, we always ask ourself the same question: “Who did the damage?”

Which bowler got the wickets? That’s always our first question. And usually when it’s a winning team, we’ll have a name in our head already.

We touched on this at the start of the season when Mohammad Abbas and Jamie Porter immediately got back to doing what they pretty much always do. Hampshire have skittled their opponents? Oh that’ll be Abbas – or if not him, Kyle Abbott or Keith Barker. Essex have shot someone out? Oh that’ll be Jamie Porter or maybe Sam Cook or Simon Harmer.

The story’s much the same with Warwickshire, where Rushworth and Woakes are obvious Chrises to look for and Hannon-Dalby is an obvious Oliver. But Surrey? They seem to be forever surprising us.

In the field

Surrey’s batting is very familiar with Rory Burns and Dom Sibley at the top, followed by Ollie Pope and with Ben Foakes quietly seething somewhere a bit further down the order a spot ahead of Will Jacks.

But the bowlers? Surrey have Sam Curran, Tom Curran, Reece Topley and Kemar Roach in their 2023 squad. And if they’ve bowled their opponents out for 141, it’ll probably be none of them who’ve taken the wickets.

Surrey seem to positively delight in (a) selecting bowlers about whom we have no strong opinions and (b) instructing them to take regular cheap wickets.

A few weeks ago we mentioned not really knowing Dan Worrall and the inevitability of him being a 30-something seamer from Australia. This week he was opening the bowling with Jordan Clark, a 30-something all-rounder who didn’t always get a game for Lancashire and who we’re pretty sure never opened the bowling for them. Both men took three for 60-odd in Kent’s first innings, which is a very share-the-work-around Surrey way of going about things.

Tom Lawes also took three wickets in that innings and then 5-22 in the second innings. So yet again we found ourself looking at a Surrey scorecard, asking ourself “Who’s this guy then?” (A 20-year-old seamer playing his 10th first-class game.)

Whenever you think you’re getting to grips with things, Surrey go all Borg and sub in another body. At this point it almost feels like they have a different match-winning bowler allocated for each of their County Championship fixtures. Another 30-something Australian seamer, Sean Abbott, was also playing in this game and he already has 16 wickets this season. Gus Atkinson was the fifth bowler and he has 14 wickets at 14.92 out of the 39 he’s taken in his entire career.

Surrey had 15 wicket-takers last season. They’re only up to eight so far this season. This thing will go on.

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Warwickshire looked set for another thumping win on Saturday. That they ultimately only delivered a slightly awkward one was however rather less important than what Surrey’s Rory Burns had already done elsewhere against Middlesex.

Still dangerously armed with a Chris Rushworth, Warwickshire were able to dismiss Essex for 126 and 215, giving themselves a 100-run target to win the match. This bowling dominance was however offset by their first innings total of 242 because a big lead does not equate to big bonus points.

A team needs to score 250 to earn their first batting bonus point with further points available at 300, 350, 400 and 450. Surrey’s first innings score of 380 was therefore three better than Warwickshire’s and that’s what’s given them a lead.

We honestly feel that the Championship would gain more than it would lose by binning bonus points altogether.

Top scorer for Surrey was Jamie Smith with 97, but he seems a slightly less significant figure to us than Rory Burns, who captained his side, opened the batting and made 88, all while looking like this.

Burns is now well on his way to becoming one of those incredibly valuable county cricketers who are relentlessly excellent without really having much of a shot of getting called up for England again, what with how his presentation on industrial piping went last time around.

Compounding this, he’s opening with Dom Sibley too.

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They say that elite sport involves making sacrifices. We’re wondering whether Warwickshire’s Sam Hain is coming to realise that he might have to sacrifice his highly awful haircut.

Sam Hain had a great season last year. He then started this season very well before continuing it almost as well.

At the time of writing, Hain is averaging 95.50 in the County Championship. His form is strong, but he surely has to be asking himself, “Could a man of my haircut ever truly play for England?”

It would be a brave selector who looked at the follicular abomination above and thought, “Yes, this is a man who needs to be playing for England.”

Because imagine you pick someone with that haircut and they don’t play well. Imagine that. What do you look like if you pick that haircut and the batter it’s attached to doesn’t make many runs? If that happens you look like the person who exposed a great many people to a mullet-adjacent horror show without improving the Test team.

Unforgivable. No-one wants to be remembered as that selector.

But we are here to report ‘developments’.

The previous image of Hain is from six months ago. Now here’s one from pre-season, just over a month ago.

Is it our imagination or is that… not quite as bad?

We could be wrong. Maybe it’s just a lighting thing. But we have more evidence. This next one’s from a fortnight ago.

If you can find it in your heart to overlook the nagging hint of combover (Come on, you can do it. Dig deep!) then this a good few steps closer to acceptability compared to six months ago, is it not?

The problem is not solved. There’s still a way to go. But the changes we seem to be seeing here at least suggest a dawning realisation.

Sam Hain does not want to be unselectable and he may be prepared to make sacrifices.

Sometimes you just have to look at what your peers are doing. Hain may well be averaging 95.50 this season, but Keaton Jennings is averaging 94.50 and he has already ceased looking like Napoleon Dynamite.

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Warwickshire have only won two of their four games, yet both those victories have been scary enough to take them equal top of the County Championship.

Last month Warwickshire secured one of those innings victories where even the term ‘innings victory’ doesn’t really do justice to the margin. They took 20 Kent wickets on a pitch where only four of their own batters were dismissed.

That was a proper thumping, but it was also only Kent. (Sorry Kent, but, you know…) Last week they were up against Hampshire – who at the time were second in the table. They won that one by an innings and 84 runs.

Again, Warwickshire lost only four wickets – plus the additional four that all teams are legally obliged to lose to Mohammad Abbas. (They lost eight wickets.) Four batters passed 50, although we note that the flow of wickets in the match only halted once Sam Hain arrived at the crease. He made 85.

Either side of this, Warwickshire rolled their opponents for 229 and then 97. Chris Rushworth, formerly of Durham, took 7-38 in the second innings and 10 in the match.

While this was unfolding, other early frontrunners were faltering a little. Essex could only draw with Surrey and Surrey could only draw with Essex, while foolish Middlesex entirely forgot to play cricket and slipped down to fifth as a consequence.

A quick word too for an ostensibly nondescript result between two teams in the nondescript part of the table with Nottinghamshire’s Stuart Broad and Olly Stone securing a nine-wickets-down draw against fellow England seamer James Anderson and Lancashire. Cricket’s greatest batter made 3 not out off 50 balls.

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Surrey have learned from Hampshire. If you want to advance your cause in the County Championship, play a match.

It seems so simple, but you’d be surprised how many teams fail to take this obvious first step. Surrey and Warwickshire were early front-runners in the Championship, but got complacent, kicked back and put their feet up for the next round of matches.

Big mistake – but the tortoises and hares then swapped roles. Both counties got back in action last week while most of the other teams were taking a bit of time off to catch up with the DIY or the gardening or whatever.

Somerset planned to get a few things ticked off their To Do list, but mostly just sat around watching telly while occasionally expressing astonishment at what day it was already.

The decision to play cricket worked out excellently for Surrey, who beat Warwickshire. However, it worked out far less well for Warwickshire, who lost to Surrey.

Middlesex and Kent also took to the field and the former have now vaulted up to third after making something like nine runs across their first two matches.

Surrey’s win was born of the bowling of Kemar Roach and Dan Worrall. The latter is one of those cricketers whose name is quite familiar without necessarily having much detail below it in our mental archives.

As a rule of thumb, successful county batters you don’t really know that well are most likely from South Africa. Successful county bowlers you don’t really know that well are most likely 30-something seamers from Australia.

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You’ve got to keep your eye on Hampshire – they’re devious fiends.

If you were to attempt to prosecute Hampshire for the crime of sly deviousness, Exhibit A in your case would be their continued use of a relentlessly accurate seam bowling attack, none of whom are likely to get called up for international duty. Assembling a team like this for the County Championship is tantamount to cheating.

This week they pulled another breath-taking sly dog move by playing cricket. Surrey and Warwickshire will be kicking themselves they didn’t think of that one.

But it doesn’t end there. As far as we can make out, much of the UK beyond the boundaries of the balmy North-West was blighted by rain last week. This resulted in a lot of drawn matches. The exceptions were a helter skelter run-chase from Middlesex after Nottinghamshire declared with 40 overs of the match remaining and Hampshire’s win over Northamptonshire, which they achieved by not letting their opponents bat for very long at all.

If there’s possibly rain about, why not just bowl the opposition out for 149 and then 63? That way you don’t need so many overs. One of Hampshire’s spare seamers, James Fuller, kept Northamptonshire’s first innings under 50 overs with 6-37. The second then lasted just 22.3 overs with King Cricket county round-up stalwart Mohammad Abbas taking 4-31 and Kyle Abbott 3-9.

The conspicuous absentee here is of course Keith Barker, who has reportedly fractured not one, but both hands. Our initial feeling was that this had all the makings of a very colourful story. However, it seems that they are in fact two separate injury incidents, both sustained while batting against Surrey last week.

The lesson here is that while playing cricket can sometimes get you to the top of Division One of the County Championship, it’s not necessarily always a good idea.

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Surrey’s Ollie Pope has made 264 runs in four County Championships innings this year. Warwickshire’s Sam Hain has made 284 in two. It’s a reminder of how England’s selectors can sometimes influence the title race.

Essex, Hampshire and (technically) Kent made the early running in the opening round of the County Championship.

However, in round two, the Essex v Lancashire dobble-off was blighted by both rain and competent second innings batting and ended up a draw; Hampshire were beaten by Surrey; and Kent were annihilated by Warwickshire.

Which means the table now looks like this:

Surrey’s win was largely shaped by sometime England wicketkeeper Ollie Pope, who defied Mohammad Abbas et al to make 91 in the first innings and then apparently learned enough from his dismissal to Abbas to make 122 not out off 102 balls in the second innings in what turned out to be something of a canter to victory.

Warwickshire’s innings victory was set up by Sam Hain, a Hong Kong-born, Australia-raised England Lions batter who made 165 not out in a total of 453-4.

Once upon a time Hain was Warwickshire’s next big thing. He probably isn’t any more. Even if 27 isn’t too old to still be a ‘next big thing’ (and we don’t really have a position on that) then there’s a case for saying he’s in the process of graduating into being Warwickshire’s current big thing anyway.

Hain made 1,137 runs at 63.16 last season and has now made a hundred both times he’s batted this season. He is unarguably going well. Too well perhaps? If Warwickshire have designs on winning the title (and presumably they do because, you know, that’s kind of the point) then probably the best thing for them would be if Ollie Pope and Harry Brook carried on playing really well.

Warwickshire won’t achieve much this week though because they aren’t playing. And even more helpfully, the team they aren’t playing are Surrey. After two whole matches, the top of the table’s having a bit of a breather.

It’s a bit confusing, but the same sort of a move worked okay for post-apocalyptic drama, The Last of Us. After two episodes introducing its audience to central characters, Joel and Ellie, episode three pretty much entirely focused on Ron Swanson and that Aussie fella from the first series of The White Lotus, neither of whom we’d encountered before. That was a very powerful episode. Maybe Northamptonshire or Somerset can deliver something similar later this week.

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At one point during last year’s visit to Chelmsford to play Essex, Lancashire were 7-6. All in all, across both innings, they managed just 204 runs. They won the match. James Anderson’s back for this year’s trip...

Cricket being cricket, we fully expect this week’s Essex v Lancashire clash to be (a) a bore draw with one team making 700-5 and the other countering with 660-6, or (b) largely rained off.

But that’s not what recent history or the respective teams suggest. Recent history and the respective teams reckon that Extras will probably be top scorer.

Yes, Sralastair Cook will be playing, and yes Dan Lawrence and Josh Bohannon are fine young batters. But at the same time, Cook’s 40 was by far the highest score the last time these two teams met and he top scored with 14 in Essex’s second innings.

“Days like this are really annoying,” said Lancashire coach Glen Chapple after his team had surrendered 16 wickets on the first day. Just to reiterate, Essex were bowled out even more cheaply in that match.

And if anything the bowling attacks will be stronger this time around.

La creme de la fast-medium

Jamie Porter took nine wickets last week and no-one said an incredible amount about it because of course Jamie Porter took nine wickets. That’s just what he does. Jamie Porter bowls relentlessly lethal fast-medium.

And so does Sam Cook with whom he opens the bowling. 25-year-old Little Chef has now taken 221 first-class wickets at an average of 19.99.

Relentlessly lethal fast-medium. Have we mentioned that Jimmy Anderson’s back for Lancashire for this match? Tom Bailey (313 first-class wickets at 23.63) is okay too.

Overseas dobblers

If it weren’t for the fact that he’s actually, genuinely called William Williams (“thanks a stack Mum and Dad”), it would be very easy to never notice Lancashire’s other seamer. Will Williams is one of those 30-something non-international seamers who provide the starchy carbohydrates for the County Championship plate. Originally from New Zealand, where he made his professional debut, Williams now plays for Lancashire as a local player. He has taken 155 first-class wickets at 21.55 and the closing line of his Wikipedia page is a beauty.

He’s joined in the Lancashire team by another New Zealand dobbler (albeit Zimbabwe-born), good old Colin of Big Man.

Essex have someone who has dobbled for New Zealand too: Doug Bracewell. If you get confused with your New Zealand Bracewells, this is the one who’s the son of Brendon; nephew of John, Mark and another Doug; and cousin of Michael.

Essex will presumably field another Zimbabwe-born international dobbler, Shane Snater of the Netherlands (who is also Jason Roy’s cousin). Snater took 2-18 and 6-10 in this fixture last year.

Bit of spin

You want more bowling? Essex’s Simon Harmer has now taken a million County Championship wickets at an average of nothing. Lancashire’s Matt Parkinson is the bowler of the slowest delivery in the entire CricViz database and also a marvellous leg-spinner.

As we said near the start, Essex v Lancashire doesn’t promise to be a runfest but almost certainly will be because cricket is a quite wilfully absurd sport.

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And why should they?

The general vibe of the County Championship of late (and honestly quite a lot of the time, not just now) is that something needs to change.

There need to be fewer teams, or at least fewer matches; they need to use a different ball; they need to play at different times of the season; and everyone needs to play whatever the hell Bazball is supposed to be this week.

But the County Championship has this kind of colossal gravity to it where no matter what you try and do, it doesn’t budge far.

It’s a bit like stretching pizza dough. You’re gently trying to tease it into the right shape without putting any holes in it, but each time you lay it out there’s a sort of latent elasticity where it starts retracting again.

So it was that the first week of the 2023 County Championship was shaped by Essex’s Jamie Porter and Hampshire’s Mohammad Abbas, both of whom took nine wickets in victories.

Porter was the top wicket taker when Essex won the Championship in 2017 and also took plenty when they won again in 2019. His team mate Simon Harmer took the most that year and he’s still around too.

Abbas meanwhile is a recurring character in our early season county coverage. We’ve just spotted that we also wrote about him exactly a year ago. Abbas now has 100 first class wickets for Hampshire at an average of just 16.5. This year he will again be complemented by Kyle Abbott and Keith Barker.

The years roll on but the song remains the same.

Or at least broadly the same because obviously things do change. Porter and Abbas are the archetypal Championship seamers, perfectly suited to UK pitches and the Dukes ball, but the Kookaburra is flying in for a couple of rounds of matches later in the year.

The two men could be forgiven for resenting this – having their skills blunted with a pudding of a ball that gives bowlers next to nothing to work with after the first few overs – but Porter in particular has far more to gain than lose. This will be a rare opportunity to demonstrate that his ability could translate to other conditions. People can’t say that you’d never take wickets with a Kookaburra when you’re doing precisely that.

Just to give a full explanation of the early Division One table, we should probably mention that Kent were the other winners. Perhaps we’re being unfair but that result doesn’t immediately feel as significant with regards to the outcome of this year’s Championship.

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