Pears on my Pillow

Instant reaction: The entire county of Worcestershire can fuck right off. Apologies for that outburst.

The end of the cricket season has come, and with it a thrilling conclusion to the County Championship, still the most important domestic cricket competition in the UK. Well done to Nottinghamshire for pipping Somerset right at the end, you can’t help but feel a little sorry for Somerset, but Nottinghamshire constructed the way they did it in a superb way and just by the skin of their teeth. Read here for an astoundingly well summarised and commented on piece that evolved during the day. An example of online interactive journalism at its best, for which cricket is amazingly well suited.

While all this exciting stuff was going on in the First Division, I was feverish about the climax to the Second Division and in the end had to (unsuccessfully) bottle my rage at the final denouement. Glamorgan, despite being in the promotion spots all the way through the season, managed to lose out on the last day of the last round to Worcestershire, who secured second place and promotion by beating divisional champions Sussex on the final day. I have to admit that is quite an achievement for Worcestershire, who lost many of their best players before the season started and looked like they would struggle to do anything this year.

The last four days had been incredibly frustrating, with all matches affected by rain, one of the perils of having the end of the season in the middle of September. In the end this created a host of strange results and manufactured games, where sides tried to forge results out of what could have been stultifying 2 innings and a bit affairs. While this is necessary, it can be massively annoying for the supporters of a team who end up losing out because of this. Sussex effectively surrendered their game to Worcestershire, leaving Glamorgan needing a win. Sussex had declared on 264-4 with Worcestershire bowling all of their players bar the wicketkeeper in an effort to up the total and get a declaration. Sussex left what could have been a decent target of just over 300 if it hadn’t been for the gentle approach they took to bowling. Despite a couple of early wickets, Sussex took the foot off and allowed an unbroken 200 plus partnership between Moeen Ali and James Cameron (his maiden century) to build up, handing the win to Worcestershire with a fair amount of time left.

Glamorgan gave it a go, recovering from a shocking batting performance in the 1st innings (reeling at 66-6) to recover to 166, bowling out bottom side Derbyshire for 276 and posting a quickfire 269-3 off 33 overs in an effort to force a result by just about having enough time to potentially bowl them out. It very nearly came off, with Derbyshire at one stage 48-4, but there was not enough time and Glamorgan missed half chances that could have twisted the screw and ended up swinging the day back to Wales.

All so thrilling, but the reality is that Glamorgan should have sewn this up last week and should’ve been playing out a draw in front of their fans while celebrating a return to the top division for the first time in many years. My outbursts upon the close of play were as much annoyance at contrived results as frustration at Glamorgan’s inability to wrap it up earlier. A profligate end to the season meant that chances were missed. Promotion would have been great step up for a young and developing side. Guys like James Harris have been outstanding, the signing of Jim Allenby has been crucial for eking out wickets and getting late middle order runs. Mark Cosgrove, despite being an orca, is a formidable batsman capable of destroying bowling attacks. Gareth Rees has been a stalwart again. Thom Maynard has started to look more in control at the crease though is still too erratic. Crofty is still playing and passed notable landmarks this year. I could go on, but suffice to say this has the makings of a good side, and one that deserved to be promoted. Unfortunately this was not to be.

The way that it has been snatched away after being in our grasp for so long is tough to take, as are the machinations that occurred in other games to conjure up the conclusions that came. So, what can we learn from this? The main thing is that if you want to be promoted you have to be ruthless to the end. This year we didn’t kill off teams when we should have to get the points needed. That’s also what happened last year when Glamorgan just missed out. Clearly there needs to be more of hard edge and mental toughness to Glamorgan’s game before they can step up.

Also, we’ve learnt that pear cider will, for a while at least, be a very bitter drink and best avoided.

How to get out of the Championship

Over the last few years the Championship has picked up a (highly deserved) reputation as being a tough and very competitive division. There are now a host of teams that can boast fairly recent Premiership experience (Sheffield United, Portsmouth, Leeds, Burnley, Ipswich, Reading, Hull, Middlesboro) as well as those that can think of themselves as ‘established’ Championship sides looking to kick on to the next level (Cardiff, Bristol City, Nottingham Forest, QPR). All this means that it can be very difficult to pick out who the winners and losers will be of a weekend as there are usually a couple of surprises and teams can be counted on to take points off each other. It also means that the difference between mid table and the playoffs can be a well-timed semi-decent run of matches at the back of the end of the season (see Blackpool last year).

Last night provided an example of how this competitiveness can result in some ludicrous stuff. Somehow Cardiff lost to Leicester but still managed to hold onto 2nd spot in the league due to other teams below them trading blows. The league is 6 games old and frankly any team that loses a match in the first 10 games of the season would expect to drop a couple of places.

Another ludicrous example was Cardiff’s collapse in form just after Christmas last year which carried on into the February of 2010, where occasional scrappy wins punctuated draws and defeats. Despite this, Cardiff managed to maintain their place in the playoffs during this period until their form recovered as others below and around them traded punches.

However these are exceptions rather than the rule and a mini-slump in form can often see a team dropping like a stone or rising like a whale that’s running out of breath. So how is it possible to escape the melee that is the mid to upper end of the Championship table? The simplest approach is to rise above the kicking and punching scrum by storming out into an early lead. This is easier said than done, but by escaping out of it all you can score an easy and early psychological blow. Opposition teams will feel there’s no point trying to haul you back in as you’re effectively out of reach, so they’ll concentrate on those a bit closer to them and making sure that they don’t get away. This forms a virtuous circle as you keep on picking up points while all those in the chasing pack keep taking points off each other in an effort to keep in touch. The perfect example came last year with Newcastle (admittedly a very good side at that level) who sailed away into an early lead and simply kept it going. Other examples include Reading in 2005/06 and Sunderland in 2004/05.

I suppose it’s quite simplistic; ‘win league by being top from the start’ isn’t exactly a revolutionary approach, but after watching this division for a number of years it seems to be the best approach to avoid the manic end of season jostling for position that inevitably happens. Could QPR be the team that will do that this year? It’s too early to tell but they are certainly the early runners with a string of impressive results during their first 6 games. If they’ve got a 7 point lead after 10/11 games then it’ll be interesting to see how teams approach games against them.

Of course, the other option is to just fluke your way up like Blackpool did.