The third round of matches in the Bob Willis Trophy begin on Saturday and with just two sets of fixtures left in the group stage after these games, the next four days feel pivotal in the end outcome of the competition.
Once again we have all 18 sides in action and with plenty of teams still in contention to win their groups we should be in for the most competitive round of the campaign to date with teams getting better with two matches under their belt.
The Format
The 18 counties are all competing in this tournament and have been split into three geographical groups – North, Central and South. Each team will play the other five counties in their group once with the two group winners with the most points progressing to the final at Lord’s at the end of September. As with the County Championship teams get 16 points for a win but eight for a draw, up from normal due to the potential for weather to intervene. First innings last a maximum of 120 overs with the usual set of bonus points available in the first 110 of them. A new ball can only be taken after 90 overs. If the final is drawn the team who leads after the first innings will win the title.
North Group
The top two in the North Group meet in a massive match at Headingley where the winner of the clash between Yorkshire and Derbyshire will have their fate very much in their own hands over the last two rounds of the group stage. Elsewhere Lancashire in third ‘host’ a winless Nottinghamshire although the match is being played at Trent Bridge with Old Trafford being a bio-secure bubble for England. The other match sees Leicestershire taking on Durham up at the Riverside in a match where the Foxes may be more motivated as Durham need snookers to qualify now.
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Central Group
Somerset are the leaders in the Central Group and they have a trip to Edgbaston to take on a Warwickshire side who continue to flatter to deceive in the county game at the minute. Should Somerset slip up they could be overtaken by Worcestershire who look to have a more comfortable clash against a Northamptonshire for whom the mantra ‘a quick game is a good game’ continues to ring round their dressing room! The other match in the group sees a heavily underrated Gloucestershire side heading across the border to Cardiff to take on a Glamorgan team who look like they are in transition.
South Group
The County Championship holders Essex are already on top of the pile in the South Group and they will be expected to stay there when they travel to Hove to take on a Sussex team who are going down the route of blooding youngsters to mixed results. Kent are second in the table and they host third placed Middlesex while Hampshire take home advantage to Arundel as they look to build on last week’s win over Middlesex when they take on the other London outfit Surrey.
Betting
There isn’t a huge amount of value around this week so we are basically just totting up the profit with what I think will be a relatively comfortable winner in the form of Worcestershire. I wouldn’t say Northants will sack the season off from here, but clearly their only interest from here on in comes in the T20 Blast later in the month so I wouldn’t be surprised to see another poor performance from them. The simple equation with them is they don’t seem to be able to apply the required application with the bat to make big scores.
That isn’t the case with Worcestershire. They have an excellent young batting line up but that doesn’t come at the detriment to their bowling resources, they are more than strong enough with the ball as well. Worcestershire come into this match in really good touch whereas Northants have just been rolled over for 67 and 154. Those kind of innings have been all too frequent over the last couple of seasons so I think the 8/11 on Worcestershire is just too big here.
Tips
WON – Back Worcestershire to beat Northamptonshire (DNB) for a 3/10 stake at 1.73 with BetVictor
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