Away from the TV cameras there is a full card of Royal London One Day Cup action on Sunday with matches taking place up and down the country as the tournament begins to reach the halfway mark in the group stage.
In Group A, Durham host Yorkshire at the Riverside, Gloucestershire take on Somerset in a local derby at Bristol, Surrey take on Derbyshire at Guildford and Northamptonshire travel to Worcester to take on Worcestershire.
Group B sees Glamorgan hosting Hampshire on the TV while Essex host Nottinghamshire at Chelmsford, Kent host Sussex at Canterbury and Lancashire entertain Warwickshire at Old Trafford.
Durham and Yorkshire have both gone well this season and that match looks quite a tight one on paper. If I was to bet it would be Durham at odds against but their collapse against Surrey on Friday puts me off. Surrey should take care of Derbyshire without too much fuss and while I fancy Northants to come past Worcestershire their defeat to Derbyshire on Friday doesn’t sit good so I’ll leave that.
I will go with one in the other match though. Gloucestershire have won a couple of tight epics recently and that should give them plenty of confidence going into their derby with Somerset. They beat Somerset away in the T20 not so long ago so that will also have given them confidence.
Somerset finally got off the mark for the tournament on Friday when they beat a disappointing Worcestershire side but I’m still not convinced by their batting and Worcestershire still managed to score 249 despite being 80-5 at one point.
That doesn’t bode well and against a Gloucestershire side who’ve held their nerve twice to get over the line Somerset could be found out again. Gloucestershire’s batting has gone well in this tournament and if they tighten up with the ball, which they showed against Yorkshire they can do, they look a big price here.
In Group B the match at Old Trafford does nothing for me from a betting point of view but I do like the two favourites in the other matches. Essex won their opening two matches but fell apart against Glamorgan on Friday night. In truth Lancashire and Warwickshire have both struggled with the bat throughout the competition so Essex could have been flattered by those wins.
One side who haven’t been flattered are Nottinghamshire. They’ve played some good stuff in this competition and clearly it is one they are targeting having flopped in the T20 and with the Championship beyond them already. In Alex Hales, James Taylor, Riki Wessels, Samit Patel et al they have a wonderful batting line up capable of winning any kind of game. The Outlaws have recently added Imran Tahir to their squad and he’ll debut here. He should go well at Chelmsford and will compliment Nottinghamshire’s attack nicely. They look really good at the minute so 4/5 is a nice price there.
Kent beat Sussex twice in their two T20 meetings earlier in the campaign and I’ve seen nothing to suggest they won’t win here too. For my money Sussex rely way too much on Luke Wright with the bat and while Chris Nash and Matt Machan have provided cameos in the competition so far it hasn’t been enough as they’ve lost both their matches. Sussex are really struggling with the ball with injuries denying them use of almost their entire seam attack.
Kent have no such injury problems and while they’ve lost to Glamorgan and Middlesex so far in this tournament they would have beaten Glamorgan had the rain not come when it did and I’m prepared to forgive them the Middlesex loss given that they batted second on a club wicket. We’ve seen throughout the T20 that Kent bat a long way down and they have a number of solid bowling options and that better all round quality can get them back to winning ways here.
Back Gloucestershire to beat Somerset for a 4/10 stake at 2.10 with Coral
Back Nottinghamshire to beat Essex for a 4/10 stake at 1.80 with Bet365
Back Kent to beat Sussex for a 4/10 stake at 1.91 with Bet365
Blog cricket YTD: -34.96pts
