For many years Lancashire have been considered the ‘chokers’ of countycricket
George Dobell at Edgbaston06-May-2011
ScorecardSimon Kerrigan ran through Warwickshire with five wickets•Getty Images
For many years Lancashire have been considered the ‘chokers’ of countycricket. Despite possessing some of the most talented squads ofplayers, they’ve not managed to win the County Championship outrightsince 1934.Despite that record, hardly a season has started since without someonepredicting that ‘this could be their year.’ And, bearing in mind thetalent at their disposal, Lancashire’s lack of success is remarkable.But not this year. A Lancashire team lacking a host of departed seniorplayers – the likes of Flintoff, Law, Cork, Loye, Sutcliffe – andunable to afford replacements or the big-name overseas players thathave become familiar at Old Trafford, was seen by most observers asprobable also-rans in this season’s championship. Some even predciteda struggle to avoid relegation.Yet, here they are, with a quarter of the championship season played,sitting on top of the table with three wins out of four. Perhaps thisreally could be the year, after all.If that is to be the case, they will have to rely on some young andrelatively inexperienced cricketer. But if the evidence of this gameis anything to go by, they have the strength in depth to sustain achallenge.Here, Simon Kerrigan rose to the challenge. Just 21 years old, thiswas Kerrigan’s first Championship appearance of the season. And heseized his chance superbly. Kerrigan claimed five wickets for justseven runs as Warwickshire, set an improbable 245 to win, subsided tojust 97 all out.Kerrigan, making excellent use of an unusually poor pitch, sparked aremarkable collapse that saw Warwickshire lose their final sevenwickets for the addition of just 11 runs. In all, Lancashire’s twoleft-arm spinners, Kerrigan and Gary Keedy, took eight wickets fornine runs between them.Afterwards, Lancashire’s coach, Peter Moores, was honest enough toadmit that Kerrigan would not have played had one of the five injuredseamers been available.”Simon would have missed out had one of the seamers been fit,” Moooressaid. “But we’ve always known he’s a good bowler. He’s been in everysquad and he took three five-wicket hauls last year.”There are opportunities at this club. Everyone knows we’ve lost lotsof senior players and that we don’t have the cash to sign an overseasbatter. But we’ve a squad of 19, 16 of which are Lancashire lads, andthey’re all excited about playing. There are some good young playerscoming through here and maybe the fact that no-one was expecting us tochallenge as much this season has done us a bit of a favour.”Ashley Giles, a man who knows a thing or two about left-arm spin, wasalso impressed by Kerrigan. As Warwickshire’s director of cricket putit: “he’s a very, very good bowler and he could become very good.”Well, you know what he means.It may be worth noting that, aside from England selector Giles, bothEngland coach, Andy Flower and Academy Director David Parsons were atEdgbaston to watch this performance. It should be no surprise ifKerrigan is named in the England Lions team which is picked next week.But having been said, he won’t play on many pitches, anywhere in theworld, that suit him as much as this. It was, by any accounts, ashocker. Despite Warwickshire subsiding to their lowest first-classscore this century (not since April 1999, when they were dismissed for86 by Essex at Chelmsford, have Warwickshire been dismissed for under100), Giles refused to blame his batsmen.And that’s what makes this defeat even more galling from aWarwickshire perspective: they had to come to terms with the fact thattheir own groundsman had prepared a pitch pretty much tailor made fortheir opposition. It was a point not lost on Giles.”The pitch suited their attack too much,” he said through grittedteeth afterwards. “We gave away home advantage. There was too muchreliance on the toss and it was too much like Russian Roulette. Ourspin department is a little thin at the moment [first choice spinner,Ant Botha has just undergone a knee operation] so we didn’t want toplay on a wicket that turned square.”I can’t fault the fight our batsmen showed. The odds were againstthem. They were up against two top-class left-arm spinners on a pitchthat was perfect for them.”Not all Warwickshire’s batsmen demonstrated much resistance, however.Mohammad Yousuf, supposedly the most experienced batsman on eitherside, charged down the wicket and, with his head in the air, attemptedto hit Kerrigan into Staffordshire. It was a wretched shot.Ian Bell wasn’t the victim of a great ball, either. Faced with oneslanted down the leg side, Bell attempted to flick it through the legside, but lobbed a leading edge to square-leg. Jonathan Trott, whosimply missed a sweep, battled hard, but never looked fluent.Most of their colleagues, however, were blameless. With the ballspitting and turning sharply, Moores admitted that batting became “alottery.” And, with Essex having won the toss and batted first, whenthe wicket was at its most docile and least indented, it was a lotteryfor which Warwickshire didn’t have a ticket.To make matters worse, Rikki Clarke faces the prospect of beingpenalised for dissent. Clarke, adjudged lbw to a Kerrigan arm-ball,left the pitch brandishing his bat to show that he had made contactwith the ball. He’ll be very fortunate if he escapes censure.It wasn’t just about Kerrigan, of course. Stephen Moore, Luke Procterand Gareth Cross set the platform in Lancashire’s first innings, whileSteven Croft batted well in their second.Lancashire were grateful to James Anderson and Keedy, too. Earlier onthe final day, they suffered a collapse of their own, losing fivewickets for seven runs at one stage, before the tenth-wicket pair putthe game well beyond the hosts with a stand of 35.In the end, however, the target was well beyond Warwickshire, who areleft to ponder two defeats in two and the annoying sense that, bypreparing such a pitch, they had all but committed suicide.