COUNTIES CRICKET Paul Bolton's championship preview
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- Created on Saturday, 08 July 2023 12:28
- Last Updated on Sunday, 09 July 2023 07:03
- Published on Saturday, 08 July 2023 12:28
- Written by PAUL BOLTON National Counties Cricket correspondent
Although Oxfordshire denied them a fifth successive title in 2021 Berkshire regained the title last September when their first innings lead in a rain-ruined final against Lincolnshire at West Bromwich Dartmouth proved decisive.
Berkshire begin their defence of the newly-sponsored competition with a Western Division One match against promoted Devon at the Falkland club in Newbury starting on Sunday July 9 with coach Tom Lambert reminding his players what can happen if they allow themselves to become complacent.
“Cheshire gave us a real pounding at Nantwich last year and they are a very, very good side. They will be equally as good again this year so they are going to be really dangerous,” Lambert said.
“Oxfordshire and us have shared a good rivalry for three or four years and they have had the better of us up until maybe the last year, so they will come back stronger.
“You’ve got Herefordshire in the group again and Devon who are traditionally an extremely strong county. Perhaps they haven’t been quite as strong over the last few years but they have players to call on.
“They got promoted last year so they will be on the crest of a pretty decent wave in red ball cricket so we have got to expect them to come at us pretty hard this weekend.
“It’s a really tough group and if you are not at your best and you don’t give everybody the respect they deserve any one of those teams can turn us over.
“With it only being four games rather than six you are one defeat away from putting yourself under pressure. So, we will have to be good from the very outset and that starts on Sunday.”
Berkshire have had a couple of wobbles in white ball cricket this season, losing heavily to Staffordshire in the semi-finals of the T20 competition followed by a trouncing by Hertfordshire in the opening match of their defence of the National Counties Trophy at Henley.
But Lambert and captain Dan Lincoln have used those uncomfortable experiences to make sure that mistakes are not repeated. Having gone unbeaten in their last four Trophy matches, including a quarter-final victory over Dorset last Sunday, Berkshire appear to have found form at the right time.
“We won two trophies last year, but we lost five games. All of those defeats helped us to re-set things a little bit,” Lambert said.
“We do ask slightly different things of the boys and ultimately, at times, that is going to cause us to fail.
“We have identified the fact that we have had a great run of success with Chris Peploe but now we are without him we probably need to score more runs because we don’t have that banker set of 10 overs.
“So, we have challenged the batters to make sure in white ball cricket that they post high scores so that we have more to work with the ball. Or, if things don’t go perfectly with the ball we might have to chase high targets.
“In doing that we have asked the boys to express themselves and be as attacking as possible. Days like Hertfordshire will happen when we don’t get it quite right and we take wrong decisions at wrong times.
“The beauty of it, like last season, is that we have lost games at really good times if that makes sense. So, we have been able to have a little chat and make sure we can figure things out and that we peak at the right times.
“We certainly haven’t cracked anything yet but the run of form is quite nice going into a period of the season when we are into knockout cricket and the start of the Championship.
“We have had some setbacks. Staffordshire deserved to beat us and beat us up badly. We had to stomach that and since then we have been really good with the ball and we have worked out where we went a little bit wrong.
“After the Hertfordshire game, when we were bowled out in 23 overs, we addressed that too. We certainly haven’t told the boys to stop playing in the manner they have been playing but to just take better options.
“They have done that since, we’ve had two scores of around 300 and it seems to have figured itself out.
“Last year we lost at times when it didn’t ruin campaigns or tournaments. It allowed us to take learnings and for us to evolve.
“Dan wants us to keep getting better and better and better because other sides are going to get better trying to topple us. Good on them. That makes National Counties cricket even better and that can only be a good thing.”
Berkshire will face Cheshire without their former England Under-19 batter Savin Perera who has just started a two-week trial with Nottinghamshire.
The 24-year-old left-hander has made three centuries in nine Championship appearances for Berkshire and has also scored heavily for Attenborough in the Nottinghamshire Premier League over the past five seasons.
Billy Mead, who made his Berkshire in the Trophy quarter-final, is a candidate to replace Perera although his own form – he made a century on first-class debut for Kent against Sri Lanka Development XI last year – is also attracting the interest of first-class counties.
“This tends to be the time of year when things are a little less straightforward availability-wise and a lot of our focus has gone into white ball cricket so far this season,” Lambert said.
“The transition is not always easy but that’s a week-to-week challenge. We found that last year when we weren’t as consistent in selection in three-day cricket for one reason or another.
“Our contracted pros get more regular cricket with their county sides which means they will be involved in the One Day Cup. So, they might become less available to us which means that we have to keep churning them out from the other end.
“There are a few youngsters who might get games in the Championship this year whereas the pros are more available for white ball cricket.
“But we are ready for that and we have a squad that can cope with it. So, it will be exciting and there might be a few new faces around who will be broken in.
“There will be the usual five or six senior players who will be there and it will then be a case of mixing in the young and the up-and-coming players in between them.”
Durant Cricket National Counties Championship
July 9-11 (11am)
Eastern Division One
Tring: Buckinghamshire v Norfolk, Bury St Edmunds: Suffolk v Staffordshire
Western Division One
Falkland CC: Berkshire v Devon, Eastnor: Herefordshire v Oxfordshire.
Eastern Division Two
Furness: Cumbria v Bedfordshire, Tynemouth: Northumberland v Cambridgeshire
Western Division Two
Truro: Cornwall v Dorset, Brymbo: Wales NC v Shropshire
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