The penultimate round of LV County Championship matches before the Vitality Blast kicks off takes place this week and there are some real juicy fixtures among the eight on show up and down the country in both divisions.
Once again the IPL dominates the TV coverage so we are reduced to the live streams which are put on by the counties but as we’ve said all season they are as good as TV coverage in a number of cases so that is no bad thing.
Division One
We have a bottom vs top clash this week when Kent go in search of their first win of the season when they host the leaders Surrey who are one of three teams who are yet to taste defeat this term. Second placed Hampshire aren’t in action this week which gives Yorkshire and Lancashire the chance to overtake them when they meet in the first Roses clash of the year at Headingley. There are two other expected mismatches on show this week too when the champions Warwickshire host Northamptonshire at Edgbaston while Gloucestershire welcome arch rivals Somerset to Bristol.
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Division Two
We have a full complement of matches in Division Two this week with the big one coming at Lord’s where the leaders Middlesex host the pre-season favourites Nottinghamshire. The hosts have no Shaheen Afridi this week which might give the visitors the advantage. The other promotion chasers are Durham and Glamorgan and they will battle it out in Chester-le-Street. Elsewhere, Derbyshire will look to remain unbeaten this term when they take on Worcestershire who will be recovering from feeling the full force of Ben Stokes last week. The bottom two meet in the other match at Grace Road where Leicestershire welcome Sussex.
Betting
I’ll go with one this week which comes in the form of the one which is going to have a lot of attention on it at Headingley where I expect the Lancashire bowling attack to deliver the goods against an inferior Yorkshire side. Both these teams have been unbeaten this season and while you could argue Lancashire were fortunate to remain that way when they went to Hampshire a couple of weeks ago, they probably had the edge of their draw against Warwickshire last week.
Haris Rauf returns for Yorkshire this week, or they hope he does, but this attack still looks weak to me and I think that is reflected in the fact that they have conceded second innings scores of 318/7, 359 and 393 to Northamptonshire, Gloucestershire and Kent respectively. Essex bagged 400 against them in the first innings last week too. Contrast that to Lancashire who have conceded more than 315 just once in eight bowling efforts. Jimmy Anderson and Saqib Mahmood return this week and although Hassan Ali sits out we are expected to get a very hot weekend which brings Matt Parkinson into the game. Yorkshire might edge these two with the bat, although even then they rely a lot on two men, but the bowling quality of Lancashire can sway this one their way.
Tips
Back Lancashire to beat Yorkshire for a 3/10 stake at 1.91 with William Hill
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