They say the more things change, the more they stay the same, and as the new county season began here in the drizzle at Lord’s, with a 41-year-old Tim Murtagh at the top of his mark and a 38-year-old Alastair Cook at the non-striker’s end, it was easy to forget that the months since the last have been dominated by talk of a landscape that will never look the same.
County cricket has never had a busier offseason and seldom can resumption have felt, for so many, like continuation. More than 70 domestic players were at various points employed in franchise leagues around the world during the winter months, in Australia, Bangladesh, Pakistan, South Africa and the UAE. The cream of them are still missing now, tied up at the IPL.
Some clubs, including Surrey, did not bother going abroad for pre-season, with not enough players around to make the jolly worthwhile. The hardcore ground away in indoor nets and outdoor marquees, building towards this Thursday in early spring.
For Middlesex, it brought the welcome return of top-flight cricket to Lord’s, though an incomplete day’s play was memorable only for a fine innings from visiting batter Dan Lawrence, who will not call this ground home until he joins London Spirit for the Hundred in four months’ time.
New Middlesex skipper Toby Roland-Jones - replacing Murtagh after his shift to a player-coach gig - won the toss and sent Essex in to bat, county cricket’s leading wicket-taker of last term picking up where he left off with his side’s first of this: Cook caught down the leg-side for 16. Murtagh snared his partner, Nick Browne, next ball, before one of several morning rain delays had the players off and covers on.
As attentions turned, it was comforting to note the usual array of notable and nonsense going on elsewhere.
At a sunnier Old Trafford, Surrey were beginning their title defence against Lancashire, last year’s runners-up, and saw captain Rory Burns collect the dubious honour of the season’s first dismissal 17 minutes after it had begun, the opener apparently not impressed at being given out caught-behind.
At Cardiff, Glamorgan and Gloucestershire managed four balls before going off for rain, then couldn’t get back on until after lunch because the motor on the hover-cover packed in, leaving it beached on the square.
At Headingley, Rehan Ahmed, fresh from a whirlwind winter of becoming England’s youngest men’s debutant in all three formats, saw his first over of the year for Leicestershire belted for 22 as Division Two favourites Yorkshire piled on the runs.
The trickle-down effect of ‘Bazball’ has been one of the major talking points of the season build-up and to that end Alex Lees’ knock at Durham caught the eye. Lees was still incumbent as a Test opener when the last Championship season ended but became the first player explicitly dropped by the new regime when left out of the autumn's Pakistan tour. His efforts to snatch back that place began well, with an 85-ball 79 against Sussex at Hove.
Back at Lord’s, for another England re-hopeful, the afternoon marked an equally solid start to the new term, Lawrence reaching stumps unbeaten with 74 of Essex’s 162 for three, having delivered some late gusto on an otherwise unremarkable first day.
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— Middlesex Cricket (@Middlesex_CCC) April 6, 2023
We have our third thanks to captain, Toby Roland-Jones!#OneMiddlesex pic.twitter.com/bmZHZAAhw9
In an interview with Standard Sport last month, Lawrence admitted his surprise at being recalled for England’s series in New Zealand and though he did not feature in either Mount Maunganui or Wellington, the 25-year-old comes into the new campaign with renewed optimism as to his place in England’s plans.
It was rarely swashbuckling stuff, and the Essex man was dropped at slip by Sam Robson on 32, but having faced 140-odd balls, Lawrence briefly let loose, planting an outrageous shot into the Mound Stand despite slipping on the pitch, then finding the same long-off boundary via the deck next ball.
Less than 24 hours earlier here, the ECB’s chief executive Richard Gould had declared plans to reform the structure and schedule of the domestic game “dead in the water”. The recommendations of the Strauss Review - including shrinking Division One and cutting the volume of four-day cricket - had failed to get the requisite backing of two-thirds of the counties and the appetite for wholesale reform has been, to some degree, sated by the performances of England’s freewheeling Test side.
Into next season, Gould confirmed, it will be a case of as you were. On the opening day’s evidence, and against some suspicion, this one mightn't be all that different either.
