See Yorkshire, that's the results you get when you give some of the younger players an opportunity...

Our reliance on the lower order to dig us out of holes is getting silly now.

Good job they did, as the gamble of only playing two front line quicks is backfiring hugely with Sussex closing in on 400 for the loss of just 5 wickets.

Game heading for a draw, but looks like they'll get the better of the bonus points as Yorkshire didn't pass 400 within the 120 overs so only got four batting points.

I wouldn't bet your house in it. I've seen Surrey lose two recent games at Essex & Kent and last week we came close to losing another to Northants after grinding our way to 400+ batting first, then conceded a first innings deficit to opponents who scored their runs faster. A first innings lead of 100 or so for Sussex would give them a real chance of forcing a result if they can make early inroads in the second innings.

Sussex won the Second XI Championship after Lancashire got into a great position and then imploded. Seems some things run right through the club...

It was actually Surrey, not Sussex, who won the Second XI Championship! Although as Tom Smith, on loan from Sussex, made 86 not out and took five wickets for Surrey perhaps that was a Freudian slip.

Just for the record, Surrey secured a "winning draw" by bowling out Lancs for a smaller first innngs total of 438 in what was theoretically a two innings match. If Lancs had neither overhauled Surrey's first innings score of 500/8 dec. nor been bowled out in their first innings the championship would have been shared.

It seems a bit strange that Jon Batty, who has played in every Championship match for the 1st XI and scored a century in the most recent one, was Surrey captain for this game. I assume there are eligibility rules for a game like this to stop anyone packing their team with first team players? The rest of the Surrey team for this game have played very little 1st XI cricket this year and a couple of 2nd team regulars including captain Laurie Evans were missing.

It was a first team-esque like collapse after tea!
We needed 106 in 34 overs with 5 wickets in hand and still lost by 62 runs. If just one of the 4 players who got over 50 had gone on to make a ton then we'd have won it.
Ah well, on to Scarborough on Monday!!

How many overs left in the Yorkshire-Sussex game? looks like it could be a close one, Sussex 64-4 chasing 240

80-8 with what looks like hat trick for Hoggard!! Come on lads finish em off

81/9

Yorkshire win.

Phew! Thought we'd blown it big style the way Sussex started their chase, fair play to them for giving it a go though.

As an added bonus, we're above [ithat lot[/i in the table too!

Sussex look all but down now, 15 points adrift. The four teams they can theoretically catch by winning their final match at Notts are playing each other (Lancs v Warwicks & Yorks v Hants) so a couple of mutually convenient draws look likely.

The race for the second promotion place from Division 2 has gone right to the wire. Five teams still in with a real shout, and they're involved in four different matches in the final round. If Derby v Essex produces a result the winners ought to go up. Derby's excellent opening pair of Chris Rogers & Wayne Madsen and Danish Kaneria's brilliant leg spin for Essex are the key factors that could swing the result their team's way for me. Otherwise I fancy Northants, who should be capable of taking maximum batting points and forcing a win on home ground against Leicester's weak attack.

It was just me being a bit dim, that's all!

We also lost the Second XI Trophy final to Yaaawkshire yesterday at Scarborough. It was f***ing freezing and we put in a bloody awful batting performance. Nice ground, though.

Scarborough and Cheltenham College are the two grounds I really want to visit with Surrey. A few years back I was in Scarborough just for a day out on a Saturday in June after Quins had played at Hull on the Friday night. I wandered into the ground and saw half an hour or so of a Yorkshire League match between Scarborough and Barnsley. It's got to be the biggest outground in the country - bigger than some HQ grounds in fact - a bit dilapidated in parts but wonderfully charismatic. It must be great with a large crowd in. We subsequently had a Pro40 game there, but on the Sunday of August Bank Holiday I didn't really fancy the trip from London just for one day.

Blackpool also looked a great outground for a Championship match when I visited last year - a shame it was abandoned without a ball being bowled!

Dark clouds gathering in West Leeds this morning - wouldn't it be typical for Sussex to win and Yorkshire to be rained off for four days unable to pick up a bonus point?

Apparently Scarborough hosted an ODI against the Windies in the '70s. Can't imagine how they organised that one!

Blackpool's a fantastic ground for County Cricket... Just a shame it always seems to rain there. Aigburth's (Liverpool) nice too, cracking bar in the pavilion.

Warwickshire are 37-4 at OT, bloody marvellous. And is anyone else watching Derbyshire and Essex? How green is that wicket?!

Warks 64/6 at lunch after winning the toss

Lancs 40 all out when we get a bat???

The batting bonus points column really show how we've struggled with the bat this year [urlhttp://news.bbc.co.uk/sport2/hi/cricket/tables/default.stm[/url
Only bottom of the table Worcs have less, and the next worst, Yorks, have 12 more

Same in the Pro40 where if we'dve batted half-decent we wouldn't have been Glamorgan's only win and Sunday would've seen Lancs v Warks for the Div 2 title.
Which would've been worth the 25p (yes 25p) ticket price!

110-4 Lancs. The batting's been woeful for 2 or 3 years now. Something big needs to bloody change.

Stop bloody moaning, if you want to see how much worse it could be take a look over t'hills

It might be bad, but we're above [ithem[/i in the CC [size=34(current games not included) [/sizeand in a higher division in the pro-40, so it aint that bad! Let them wallow in their ineptitude

I have total faith in Moxon and McGrath's ability to take a mediocre situation and make it even worse.

I haven't seen it, but Derby's groundman seems able to produce any preferred surface at will. In April I saw 17 wickets fall on day 1 on a pitch so hard and fast that the home team's collection of bog-standard county seamers was made to look like a vintage West Indies pace attack, while Andre Nel struggled to keep the ball below head height off a good length.

Derby have collapsed from 400/3 to 439/9, but Essex missed out on a third batting point as the ninth wicket fell after 120 overs. That could still be an interesting finish if Essex bat well, but without Bopara I would expect Derby to force a win leaving Northants in pole position to claim the second promotion place by bowling out Leicester twice after piling up a massive first innings score.

Yorks still have work to do against Hants, although it's hard to see Sussex winning at Nottingham when their only previous victories this year were both against the whipping boys Worccester.

Apparently Gloucester not only prepared a green pitch but also brought in the boundary ropes by ten yards in an effort to make bonus points easier to come by in their home game with Kent!

Maximum bowling points for Yorkshire as Hampshire are dismissed for 351. Avoiding defeat would be enough to avoid relegation even if Sussex win now I think.

Cracking comeback this morning!!