First-Class Counties Second Eleven Annual 2011

Richardson, the fourth time in five years that the award has headed up to the splendid Riverside ground. Michael is the son of David Richardson, the former South African Test wicket-keeper and now ICC executive. Finally before we turn to one-day cricket, the highest partnership of 2010 was the 342 by Alex Hales and Akhil Patel for Nottinghamshire v MCC YC, in the match reported above. The One-Day Trophy was won by Essex for the third time. They defeated Lancashire by just 14 runs at their cosy Chelmsford home. The weather was less kind in the one-day format, with four matches suffering a total wash-out. The MCC YC were particularly unfortunate with two games totally washed out. The games in question were Northamptonshire v Middlesex, at Wantage Road, Worcestershire v MCC YC at Kidderminster, Gloucestershire v Minor Counties at Clifton College and Lancashire v MCC YC at Heywood. The highest score in the One-Day Trophy was a statistician’s dream as Essex ran up a monumental 437-5 against Surrey at The Oval. This beat the previous highest, being Surrey’s score of 400-9 against the MCC YC at Banstead in 2001. Billy Godleman’s individual contribution of 216* was also the highest individual score, supplanting Alistair Brown’s effort of 210 for Surrey against Kent, again at The Oval, in 1992. At the other end of the scale, Derbyshire were dismissed for just 35 by Warwickshire at Dunstall in only 9.3 overs. If there had been some close finishes in the Championship, the same was true of the one-day competition. Nottinghamshire beat Lancashire by one run in May at the Notts Sports Club, and a similar outcome decided the game between Middlesex and the Minor Counties in favour of the professionals. Three games were even closer and ended in ties, these being Surrey v Sussex at Purley, Durham v Glamorgan at Darlington and Northamptonshire v Kent at Bedford School. Karl Brown of Lancashire was the leading run-scorer in the Second Eleven Trophy. He had scores of 98, 102, 101*, 118, 72, 114 and four (all good things come to a close eventually). These performances gave Karl an aggregate in the competition of 609 runs at an average of 101.50. But, amazingly, two other players, Michael Richardson (Durham) and Scott Elstone (Nottinghamshire) ended with averages over 100 and all better than Mr Brown’s final figures. The Second Eleven Trophy produced 38 centuries with two individual hundreds in four games and three in the match between Glamorgan and Northamptonshire. The leading wicket-taker was Ravi Patel of Middlesex whose left-arm magic earned him 17 wickets and the most economical average of just 13.41 runs per wicket. This year, the players had a third competition to contest. The new Second Eleven split-innings Knock-Out Competition appeared and managed to escape unscathed 6