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Frizzell County Championship Division Two - 3-6 July Preview Ed Green - 3 July 2002
Division two seems, at this early stage to be splitting into two mini-divisions of its own, with Essex, Middlesex, Derbyshire and Worcestershire in pursuit of promotion while the rest struggle to contend with apparently limited playing resources. The division has seen far more gap between top and bottom, and far more results this season - last year Warwickshire were promoted with five wins, now, not even half way through the season two teams have already reached that number.
Derbyshire v Gloucestershire - Derby Derbyshire, for their part, have the highest win ratio in the championship with a remarkable five successes from six games, their success has also been based on less high scoring players than the other counties at the top of division 2, with only Di Venuto passing four hundred runs so far, that has been compensated for by everyone else mucking in with the bat and by their bowlers - led by the irrepressible Dominic Cork mowing down all comers.
Glamorgan v Essex - Swansea Their visitors on the other hand have benefited from team work, and opportune spells of form, when Irani and Hussain have been absent, then Robinson and Habib have taken on the job of scoring their runs, and always they have had leading international run scorer and keeper par excellence Andy Flower. With leading bowler Irani out then the rest of their on paper limited bowling has lobbed seeming hand grenades. The way in which Essex have attacked their recent games is shown by the fact that of their seven top bowlers by average none take more than nine overs to take a wicket - a statistic matched only by Surrey's 1999 tour de force in recent years, and they had four international strike bowlers to lead the way!
Middlesex v Worcestershire - Lord's At Worcester things are looking brighter by the week, Alan Donald has now arrived and coinciding with his impact Hick has delivered in spades, often the start of a run of big innings from him. These welcome contributions come into a side who's other bowlers and batsmen have already been performing well with runs and wickets both plentiful and shared around.
Northamptonshire v Durham - Northampton Hussey has so far amassed an total of 852 runs from seven appearances, and Mal Loye has added another 536, figures that are hard to credit in a played seven, lost five context. Carl Greenidge is still the only Northants bowler to have taken a fivefer though Brown now joins him with a sub fifty average. They need the other regular bowlers to either take wickets or get their economy rates down to, or preferably below three to make any impression on the table. For Durham, who have eight bowlers already past the fifty over mark one gets the feeling that there is more to come, and that now that they've started to score some runs a bit more focus should bring about a first win and maybe even a run of successes.
P W L D Bat Bowl Deduct Points Essex 7 5 1 1 21 20 0.50 104.50 Middlesex 6 4 0 2 27 16 0.00 99.00 Derbyshire 6 5 1 0 16 18 1.00 93.00 Worcestershire 7 3 2 2 23 18 0.00 85.00 Nottinghamshire 6 2 4 0 11 18 0.50 52.50 Glamorgan 6 2 3 1 8 16 0.00 52.00 Northamptonshire 7 1 5 1 20 16 0.50 51.50 Gloucestershire 6 1 3 2 13 17 0.00 50.00 Durham 7 0 4 3 13 19 0.00 44.00 © CricInfo Ltd
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