After the thrills and spills of an incident packed weekend of T20 it is back to the purer form of the game on Tuesday as the latest round of County Championship matches take precedence.
Yorkshire have the chance to go a step closer to retaining their title when they host Somerset at Headingley. Warwickshire and Middlesex battle in the race to finish behind Yorkshire at Edgbaston while Hampshire face a huge match up at Durham. Worcestershire host Sussex at New Road in a huge relegation clash.
In Division Two Lancashire need just five points from their clash with Kent at Canterbury to seal promotion back to the top flight. Surrey are chasing them and are at home to Derbyshire while Northamptonshire head to Essex and Leicestershire play host to Gloucestershire in the other matches.
In truth there isn’t a lot I like in Division Two this week. The promotion places are pretty much settled and there isn’t a whole lot to play for. I was tempted by Leicestershire against Gloucestershire but off the back of a long and hard season motivation for dead rubbers isn’t always there so I’ll leave the division alone.
Yorkshire are huge favourites to see off Somerset and while it would be a major surprise if they didn’t they are without some players on England duty so at that price I’ll just let them win. The Warwickshire vs Middlesex match could go either way. With Ian Bell available I’d favour Warwickshire but I’m not sure there’s value there at all.
I do see value in the other two matches though. Durham’s season is disappearing at an alarming rate. They are without a win in their last five Championship matches and bombed out of the One Day Cup last week so their season is effectively over from a competitive point of view.
Hampshire’s is anything but over despite their semi-final defeat in the NatWest T20 Blast on Saturday. They still have survival to fight for so they are likely to be giving this their all. With Fidel Edwards in excellent form and Ryan McLaren signed to provide batting depth and international class with the ball Hampshire’s side looks a lot stronger than it has at times this season.
This is a match Hampshire have to win and if the openers can see off Chris Rushworth then it is a match they can win at a very attractive price.
In the other match Sussex and Worcestershire face each other in a game which is highly likely to see the loser relegated so the stakes couldn’t really be much higher in that match.
With that in mind I’m slightly surprised Worcestershire have said thanks but no thanks to Saeed Ajmal for the rest of the season and brought in the explosive but potentially expensive Shannon Gabriel. The Pakistan spinner plays his final match of the season here and he’ll want to go out with a bang.
Had it not been for injuries I don’t think Sussex would be anywhere near the relegation places in the division and while they still don’t have everyone fit their batting is working much better in recent times and having Chris Jordan available is a big boost. He and Steve Magoffin will be able to do some real damage when it matters this month which will be important.
Worcestershire seem to play well for a couple of days and then get found out and if that happens here then Sussex will make them pay. I think we’ll see the best of Sussex here with everything on the line and at 10/11 I’m confident they will prevail here.
Back Hampshire to beat Durham for a 3/10 stake at 2.50 with Bet365
Back Sussex to beat Worcestershire for a 4/10 stake at 1.91 with Betway
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