fYorkshire have confirmed that Joe Root will take over the captaincy from the suspended Andrew Gale at Trent Bridge as they aim to seal a first County Championship title for 13 years with a victory against Nottinghamshire.
Root will be joined in the Yorkshire team by Gary Ballance, who is another of an unusually large number of England players to have been released to their counties for the closing stages of the Championship season, and Tim Bresnan is also included in their squad and expected to play despite missing Sunday’s Twenty20 international with a slight pectoral strain.
But Surrey have declined Kevin Pietersen’s offer to play in their penultimate Division Two fixture at Worcester, preferring to give further experience to young players with their promotion hopes effectively dead – and therefore raising major questions about Pietersen’s hopes of playing Championship cricket with them next season.
Pietersen, who has only played Twenty20 cricket since being dumped by England in February, had said in an interview with All Out Cricket last month that he was keen to wear whites and face a red ball in September for the first time in eight months, and that he “probably should have played a little bit more” cricket in 2013 to keep his eye in for his lucrative T20 commitments.
Surrey initially gave that fresh enthusiasm for Championship cricket a positive response, albeit with reservations as their chief executive Richard Gould stressed that any decision on Pietersen would depend on the budget available to the director of cricket Alec Stewart and head coach Graham Ford within the salary cap that has been operating for the past three seasons.
But Stewart’s confirmation that Pietersen will not be playing at Worcester suggests that he is not in their plans for 2015 at this stage. “We discussed it but realistically we’ve got just an outside chance of promotion [Surrey are 32 points behind second-placed Hampshire, with only two games remaining]. So it’s better for the future of the club if we give Aneesh Kapil or Arun Harinath two first-class games to see how they are progressing which will stand us in good stead for next season.”
Yorkshire’s only concern is the present. They hold a 26-point lead over Nottinghamshire with each county having two more matches to play, meaning Chris Read’s team need to take three more points than Yorkshire at Trent Bridge to maintain a mathematical chance of winning the title – and realistically need a win to keep the race alive going into their last game, at home to Sussex next week, when they would have to win to keep the pressure on Yorkshire in their final fixture at home to Somerset starting on 23 September.
Gale, who has been suspended for the last two matches of the season after abusing Ashwell Prince during last week’s Roses victory at Old Trafford, will travel with the team but hand control to Root for the second time this season. Root’s first match in charge, at Lord’s in April, ended in Yorkshire’s only defeat, as Middlesex made a record-breaking winning total of 472 for three with Chris Rogers scoring an unbeaten 241.
Nottinghamshire Alex Hales and Harry Gurney return from England duty, although James Franklin has returned to New Zealand.
Durham are boosted by the return of Ben Stokes as they aim to remove any lingering doubts about their Division One safety at Lord’s against a Middlesex team including Eoin Morgan and Steve Finn.
Lancashire have Jimmy Anderson and Jos Buttler available for their penultimate game against Sussex at Hove, which they must win to maintain any chance of avoiding a second relegation in three years. Chris Jordan is expected to play for a Sussex team who are not yet mathematically safe themselves.
Worcestershire will secure promotion if they beat Surrey or Essex fail to beat Kent at Chelmsford.
