County roundup by Tanya Alred
Kashif Ali’s dream debut in Division One continued when he knocked up a second century within three days for Worcestershire against Warwickshire at Edgbaston. This one was even sparkier, 133 runs of gumption made at better than a run a ball – his hundred reached, as on Friday, with a six.
Kashif is a graduate of the South Asian Cricket Academy, set up in 2020 to tackle the under‑representation of British Asians in professional cricket – they make up 30% of recreational players but only 5% of the men’s professional game. Kashif was one of seven male Saca players to get a professional contract with a county in 2022‑23, the first to make a first-class century and now the first to score two in a match. He also put his name in lights as the first Worcestershire player to make two hundreds in a game since Daryl Mitchell in 2018, who tweeted: “He gets em far quicker than I ever did.”
A tantalising final day is on the cards at Trent Bridge where a 132‑run partnership between Matt Critchley and Paul Walter lugged Essex out of a sticky situation against Nottinghamshire: from five down with a lead of just 89, to a lead of 289 at stumps. It was cheering news after Feroze Khushi’s bat fell foul of the umpire’s bat gauge on Saturday evening and a potential points deduction awaits.
A gusting, swirling wind stopped play at Old Trafford when the head grounds manager, Matt Merchant, together with the club’s safety officer, decided that it was too windy for his staff to risk lifting the groundsheets that had been put down at lunchtime as a precaution against predicted rain. Shortly afterwards the deluge arrived and washed out the rest of the day, allowing Lancashire and Surrey players to watch the United game just across the way. It was the first time the match referee, Mike Smith, had come across wind stopping play, but he confirmed there was a similar situation at Edgbaston where the head groundsman, Gary Barwell, had said he would not be asking his staff to put heavy flat sheets on in high winds.
A draw looks most likely in NW8 as Mark Stoneman crafted a 97 and Ryan Higgins his first century at Lord’s, to take Middlesex in sniffing distance of avoiding the follow‑on against Glamorgan: 1,080 runs, including Sam Northeast’s 335, have been scored in three days for the loss of just eight wickets on a gentle pitch, aided and abetted by a Kookaburra ball.
Tom Haines fashioned his first championship hundred since September 2022 as Sussex played catchup with Northamptonshire at Hove. James Coles, still only 20, danced to a pretty 78. And Matt Parkinson celebrated his first wicket for Kent, a screaming leg-break, as Somerset’s batters chugged towards a draw at Canterbury.
There was no play at Durham or Derby for the third day in a row, and Harry Brook still awaits his first innings of the season after the day was washed out at Headingley.
A hundred for Ryan Higgins!
Didn’t want it to go uncelebrated. His first at Lord’s. Incidentally the first Ryan Higgins who comes up when you type his name into twitter is the national executive director of faith engagement to Donald Trump. Cue a clever joke about following Middlesex, but that’s for you BTL.
