LVCC Round Six Review: Anderson injury concern & Yorkshire's winless run continues

Division One:
Kent 95 & 259/4 drew with Hampshire 373
Lancashire 326 drew with Somerset 361 & 398/5d
Northamptonshire 158 & 72 lost to Nottinghamshire 255 by an innings and 25 runs
Surrey 380 & 73/1 beat Middlesex 209 & 240 by nine wickets
Warwickshire 242 & 100/6 beat Essex 126 & 215 by four wickets

Division Two:
Derbyshire 251/9d & 166/5 drew with Gloucestershire 383
Durham 227 & 246/9 beat Yorkshire 254 & 218 by one wicket
Glamorgan 258 & 82/0 beat Worcestershire 109 & 227 by 10 wickets
Leicestershire 270 & 295/6d drew with Sussex 430

ANDERSON INJURY WORRY

England awaits with baited breath as James Anderson was unable to take the field with ball or bat in the second-half of Lancashire's contest with Somerset. 

Anderson bowled 14 overs on day one, taking two wickets and conceding just 16 runs, but did not play any further part of the match from then on after suffering a groin tweak. 

Lancashire and England are keeping their cards close to their chest in regards to the severity of the injury, but with the Ashes now just a month away, the whole of English cricket is keeping their fingers crossed that Anderson's absence is purely precautionary.

On the injury, Lancashire  head coach Glenn Chapple said: “He’s just irritated the groin, I don’t think its anything too serious, we should be positive about his recovery, but obviously he’s done it badly enough not to take any part in the day today or yesterday." 

And on whether Anderson would be undergoing a scan, Chapple added: “That's for England to sort out. Seemed like a tweaked groin to me.”

Add in the news of injuries to Jofra Archer (elbow), Olly Stone (hamstring) and Brydon Carse (back) and it's been a bad week to be an England pacer. 

YORKSHIRE MISERY CONTINUES

Yorkshire's dramatic one-wicket defeat to Durham extended their winless County Championship streak to a remarkable 18 matches and counting. It is their second-longest stretch without a win since the 20 matches they went winless between 2008-2009.

Every other county has tasted success more recently than Ottis Gibson's men, whose last victory came on the opening round of the 2022 season against Gloucestershire. 

Hopes of an immediate return to Division One are already fading, with Yorkshire's misery added to by allowing Durham's final two wickets to add 60 runs in the first innings and 73 to win it in the second.

PUJARA IS HUMAN

Cheteshwar Pujara. A man seemingly built in a lab with the sole purpose of scoring runs for Sussex, didn't make a century, and we all scratched our heads in bemusement. 

Pujara went into the contest against Leicestershire with the astounding record of having scored eight centuries in 19 innings for the south-coast county without a single fifty going unconverted.

But all good things must come to an end, and for Pujara it was being given caught behind off the bowling of Tom Scriven, for a - by his standards - underwhelming score of 77. An innings that saw his average for Sussex drop all the way to just 96.41. Bradman would be ashamed. 

SURREY AND WARWICKSHIRE REINFORCE TITLE CREDENTIALS

2022 champions Surrey put away Middlesex by nine wickets in a convincing win, whilst 2021 champions Warwickshire beat 2020 winners Essex by four wickets. 

The wins saw the two teams put a 22 point buffer between themselves and the rest of the Championship, with Hampshire and Nottinghamshire in third and fourth respectively, with both teams on 57 points compared to Warwickshire's 79 and Surrey's 82.

Surrey's strength and depth was illustrated once again as they were able to recall Dan Worrall to the side. He took a first-innings five-wicket-haul, while Gus Atkinson, who started the season out of the team, took five wickets across the match as the Three Feathers battery of seamers proved too strong for the opposition once again.

CHRIS WRIGHT - THE MIRACLE BATTER

At 37 years old and with 194 first-class appearances to his name, Leicestershire's Chris Wright is already a County Championship legend having taken over 700 professional wickets in his career. 

What he isn't known for, however, is his batting. His average stands at a perfectly respectable 19.39 and he does have 14 half-centuries to his name (albeit without a hundred) but this season he is having a late-career renaissance with the bat. He has batted seven times, been dismissed on only three of those occasions and scored 253 runs in the process to give him an almighty average for the season (so far) of 84.33. 

Against Sussex, he scored 48 off 41 deliveries in the first innings, with the captains agreeing to a draw on the final day with Wright still in the hutch. One can only assume that Sussex captain Cheteshwar Pujara wisely chose to call it quits before the Leicestershire legend had another chance to wield the willow.