Firstly, an apology for neglecting this blog. I'm not sure who I'm apologising too as it's obvious that pretty much nobody is reading my blog, although if you are, thanks for coming along, and I'll try to blog a little more in the coming weeks and months.
A couple of weeks ago I went to Leicestershire to watch the County Championship match against Essex, and I'm pleased to say a resounding victory for an improving Essex team.
True, Leicestershire are marooned to the bottom of Division 2, and have only won only once this season, but with the bat at least they had danger men. One such danger for Essex was man mountain opener Will Jefferson, who can take apart county attacks on his day, and up until he reached 50 in Leicestershire's first innings that was exactly what he was doing.
Then for the first time in the match bar a single exploratory over immediately before lunch, enter Tom Craddock, Essex's young leg-spinner. Straight away he set about reducing the scoring rate, which was threatening to take the game away from Essex, as well as looking likely to take wickets with a combination of spin, flight and guile.
In the end Craddock was not the one to take the wicket of Jefferson, as he fell to the ever dependable David Masters who after a poor opening spell from the Pavillion End, returned with some accurate and probing bowling from the Bennett end before eventually getting a length ball to jag away from Jefferson, catch the edge of his bat and end up in the hands of Matt Walker at second slip.
Walker was one of the few Essex batsman - alongside Ryan ten Doeschate - not to make a significant score in either innings, in a return to form for the Essex top order. I can't comment to much on Essex's batting as most of that happened on Days 1 and 3 when I wasn't there, but I caught a reasonable portion of James Foster's magnificent rearguard effort as he marshalled No.10 Craddock to a respectable score. Craddock made only 11 in 99 minutes at the crease, but he defended stoically when Foster gave him the strike, and was quick between the wickets for countless last ball singles that kept him at the non-strikers end.
After Jefferson's rapid start, and a partnership of 109 with opening partner Boyce, Leicestershire wickets started to fall regularly, with Craddock the man to get the first one, when the left handed Boyce cut a straight one into the hands of Owais Shah at point, before Jefferson departed to Masters. Craddock then took control, bowling with flight, guile and spin to root out danger man James Taylor to an excellent catch at short leg by Billy Godleman, then trapping captain McDonald LBW with a ball that kept a little low.
Greg Smith was the next to fall, clean bowled by Maurice Chambers, who apart from that one wicket was otherwise pretty inconsistent and not particularly threatening. Craddock continued to bowl excellently, taking another wicket, that of Wayne White, LBW, before David Masters got Jigar Naik caught at slip by Owais Shah with the last ball of the day.
Shot of the Day
Honourable mentions go to a magnificent six over long on by Foster, and a superb (and unexpected) flick through the leg side by Craddock, but Will Jefferson's back foot drive down the ground has to be the winner. 6'10" Jefferson stood up tall and punched the ball into the ground, it looked like a normal defensive shot until the fielders realised how well he had timed it, by which point it had ran away for four well deserved runs.
Ball of the Day
This is basically a competition between five or six balls by Tom Craddock, it could have been the excellent top-spinner with which he snared James Taylor or his second LBW which beat the batsman beautifully in the flight, but in the end I'm going to give it to the leg break that was so good that it pitched outside leg, beat the batsman's defensive push, the stumps, the keeper and ran away for four byes...
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