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Surrey v Essex, Yorkshire v Sussex, and more: county cricket, day one – live | County Championship
Key events
Surrey’s opponents this season have knocked up opening partnerships in the first innings of 116 (Warwickshire) 156 (Leicestershire) and 152 and counting…
Sean Abbott lets Walter through his fingers (on 53 )as he follows through and stays down on the ground in horror. Essex march on, three figure visions dancing for Elgar and Walter. Essex 149-0
A sunny circuit revealed a few babies, a school trip, and lots of young professionals working from The Oval. Also Dan Worrall (at least I think it was him) going through his impressive paces in a very Australian knee socks, singlet and shorts combo. Reece Topley doing the same in full whites.
Spectators drift onto the Oval outfield like a wave onto the sand. Time to grab some sunshine to warm up, back soon.
Lunchtime scores
DIVISION ONE
Sophia Gardens: Glamorgan 91-4 v Leicestershire
Trent Bridge: Notts v Warwickshire 96-3
The Oval: Surrey v Essex 128-0
Headingley: Yorkshire v Sussex 103-3
DIVISION TWO
The County Ground: Derbyshire v Gloucestershire 70-2
Riverside: Durham v Lancashire 118-3
New Road: Worcestershire v Kent 65-3
Bad news for Asa Tribe fans, who has just lost his off stump for 24 to Josh Hull. Glamorgan 66 for three.
Dean Elgar is currently tucking into Matt Fisher with white linen napkin tied around his neck, reaches his first fifty of the year with a wristy steer to the rope. Essex 106-0.
Athers also pointed out this morning that only one Surrey bowler is currently averaging under 30 per wicket – teenage Ralphie Albert. Jordan Clark, Tom Lawes and Matt Fisher are averaging 41.66, 54.20 and 58.0.
A couple of young openers to keep an eye on this round: Asa Tribe, currently 23 not out, against Rehan-less Leicestershire (53-2); and Ben McKinney, currently in the field watching Lancashire race to 102-2.
Giant Josh Tongue makes the breakthrough at Trent Bridge, Rob Yates caught at simply at first slip off a brutish ball for 18. Warwicks 67-2.
This Oval pitch looks tasty for the batters. A lovely clunk bat on ball, as Walter drives Fisher through the covers, chased by unidentified fielder in chunky-knit Surrey short-sleeved jumper. Essex 80-0.
Robin Smith Memorial service
Hampshire have announced a memorial service for Robin Smith at Winchester Cathedral on Friday, June 12. Smith, who died in December, aged just 62, played for Hampshire for 21 years, 1982-2003, as well as earning 62 Test caps for England. A live stream of the service will be available.
Thanks to Tim Maitland who has been keeping an eye on events at Headingley and points out a double wicket maiden for Jack White – Sussex 48-2.
Zac Crawley was making merry for Kent. No more, caught for 27, his highest score of the season. Kent are 38 for three, with the unfortunate Beyers Swanepoel in the wickets on his belated Worcestershire debut.
In Division Two, slow going for Gloucestershire (22-1) and Kent (21-1) – though Crawley has raced to 17. Lancashire are scoring at five an over against Durham but have lost Balderson for 14 and Bohannon for 5. Captain Jennings screws in his boots for a familiar stint.
A good morning for batting? You didn’t need to worry about Warwicks, Phil Russell, they’re charging along, now 44-1. But Tongue does have the ball. The opening pairs for Essex (35-0) and Sussex (37-0) are still together, while things are trickier for Glamorgan, 16-1, Byrom out to the indefatigable Ian Holland.
Elgar drives Atkinson for four, oh so elegantly, next ball he’s beaten, next ball an elaborate leave. The light blue Oval seats are already gently filling up with bodies, hunching towards the sun; and, poetically, the pavilion clock is stuck at 4.25.
Joe Ro0t returns for Yorkshire
But we’ll have to wait as YJB won the toss and has inserted Sussex – currently 9-0.
“Yorkshire have been on the back foot for all but the first 14 overs of the season haven’t they?” writes Tim Maitland. “A “losing” draw at Glamorgan, where, despite having the home side 28-4, they spent most of the match behind the eight ball and then that 214-run defeat against Hampshire at Headingley, which the Yorkshire Post reports got this scathing verdict from Anthony McGrath: If we keep putting out performances like that it doesn’t matter if we’re playing in the Bradford Sunday School League because we’re going to lose.”
”I can’t pretend to have any experience of Bradford Sunday School League cricket, but if it’s anything like the rest of Bradford cricket it’s probably a pretty high standard… and yet I get the feeling that McGrath’s words were not intended as a compliment.
”Fortunately this Root kid they’re bringing in, is a bit handy. His last four matches? 111, 75,61 and 160 (and a 6, probably just to prove that he is human). Those were in Colombo and Sydney and January must seem a long time ago and feel a lot different to 9C at Headingley.
”He’s starting the season on 19,089 runs, apparently (I haven’t personally counted them all). Would you bet against him passing 20,000 before September’s done?”
An email drops, with a spring trill. Hello Phil Russell!
“As a Bears fan I’m nervous about what Josh Tongue and Co are going to do to our top order in the first session. Our last four innings have seen us start 22-3, 23-3, 25-3 and 14-3. No surprise Notts decided to field first!”
Just had a peek – is 13-1 good news? Pennington and Hutton have opened the bowling, Tongue pawing the earth.
Two-year suspension for Doug Bracewell
Former Essex cricketer Doug Bracewell has been suspended for two years by the Cricket Regulator for “an Adverse Analytical Finding for the presence of cocaine and its Metabolite, benzoylecgonine” when he was tested on the 25th September 2025. Bracewell has accepted the sanction. The suspension lasts until 24 November 2027.
Div One table
All teams have played two games unless marked
1 Somerset (3) 54
2 Warwickshire (3) 39
3 Notts 33
4 Sussex 29
5 Essex (3) 28
6 Hampshire (3) 25
7 Surrey 25
8 Leicestershire 18
9 Glamorgan 15
Yorkshire 13
Gus Atkinson, running in from the pavilion end. That familiar tippytoed run, the hands grasped in prayer. Three slips lick their lips. Dean Elgar is squarered up, some juice straight away.
I have a malfunctioning keyboard that s0metimes w0nt type os – though it did then – so apologies – and then- for sometimes having to use a zero.
Surrey have won the toss and will bowl – Noah Thain plays, on the back 0f, I learnt today from Mike Atherton, a hundred in the second team. Atkinson t0 spruce up Surrey’s b0wling.
Football for Surrey, slip catches for Essex here at The Oval. A groundsman with a red bucket and a fork does sporadic aerating. The seats are filling up on the top layer of the Mickey Stewart pavilion, they’re brave, its in full shade.
This is such a gorgeous ground.
Ooops, I think this may have launched while I was tackling The Oval’s coffee machine, apologies for half-formed thoughts.
Rehan Ahmed off to the IPL
Leicestershire are without Rehan Ahmed, off to bench warm for Delhi Capitals. He will miss the next four Championship games. Leicestershire say there are “absolutely delighted.”
Fixtures
DIVISION ONE
Sophia Gardens: Glamorgan v Leicestershire
Trent Bridge: Notts v Warwickshire
The Oval: Surrey v Essex
Headingley: Yorkshire v Sussex
DIVISION TWO
The County Ground: Derbyshire v Gloucestershire
Riverside: Durham v Lancashire
New Road: Worcestershire v Kent
Preamble
Good morning! Another glorious one, if a little nippy. On my walk from Vauxhall station, the scaffolder filing his bucket and the cyclist zipping past in the bike lane seemed unaware that Gus Atkinson was making his first appearance of the season, for Surrey against Essex.
After last week’s mini-round, we return to eight games, with Middlesex and Northamptonshire the only two sides with their feet up. Poor old Gloucestershire, three losses, three points, and hit by the news that Ben Charlesworth will join Lancs in 2027, must press on.
Games start at 11am, do join us.
The BBC’s technology editor Zoe Kleinman on the big changes coming down the line for young people online.
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Key events
“It’ll take some going for Spain v Cape Verde not to be my game of the tournament,” writes James Humphries, and he’s a Scotland supporter. “I could barely watch the last five minutes, and there was a lot of involuntary yelling and clapping. Football, bloody hell.
“It’s such a pure, pleasing underdog story I’m not even unduly bothered by the sudden realisation that cape Verde may very well end up getting more points than us.”
The story of day five has already been written
Egypt team guide
By Saher Ahmed
Egypt qualified for the World Cup unbeaten after missing out on Qatar 2022, booking their ticket to North America with a game to spare. They scored 19 goals in nine matches, as Mohamed Salah led the way with nine, conceded two goals and kept seven clean sheets. Despite the impressive numbers in qualifying, Egypt’s shape is pragmatic more than romantic and they carried that same muscle memory into the 2025 Africa Cup of Nations: tight games, deep stretches without the ball, quick release into Salah or Omar Marmoush. This was exposed by a semi-final defeat to Senegal, when Egypt were set up more to endure rather than to control.
Egypt will probably begin the World Cup in a 4-3-3 formation that becomes a 4-2-3-1 when they have to chase a game, while occasionally switching to a 3-5-2 against high blocks. Mohamed El-Shenawy is likely to start in goal, although Mostafa Shobeir has lately been giving the veteran a run for his money. The rest of the spine looks solid with Rami Rabia and either Hossam Abdelmaguid or Yasser Ibrahim in central defence. Marwan Attia and Hamdi Fathi will screen the backline and Emam Ashour will look to deliver the ball to the trio up front.
Egypt are cohesive, often hard to score against and emotionally committed, but they can still look blunt if opponents double up on Salah and the midfield cannot pass through the press. The draw placed Egypt in Group G with Belgium, Iran and New Zealand. Egypt have never won a World Cup match so ending that is the floor-level target.
Yara El-Shaboury
Last week Orange, one of Egypt’s leading mobile network operators, released a series of humorous adverts starring Egypt’s Ahmed Fatouh, Rami Rabia and Hossam Abdelmaguid, where the trio’s optimism is met with scepticism as partners and family members struggle to take them seriously. Their crime? Daring to suggest Egypt might finally progress beyond the group stage of a World Cup.
If there is one thing Egyptians do particularly well, it is self-deprecation. Perhaps that comes from history. Despite winning the Africa Cup of Nations seven times, Egypt are still waiting for their first World Cup victory. The Pharaohs will kick off their fourth appearance at the tournament against Belgium on Monday knowing they failed to win any of their seven matches so far.
That is the contradiction at the heart of Egyptian football. No African nation has won more continental titles, yet Egypt remain one of the continent’s World Cup underachievers. While other African nations aim to replicate Morocco’s 2022 semi-final success, many Egyptians would happily settle for something far more modest: a single group stage victory.
Team news
Belgium (4-2-3-1) Courtois; Meunier, Ngoy, Mechele, Ngoy, Castagne; Onana, Tielemans; Doku, De Bruyne, Trossard, De Ketelaere.
Subs: Lammens, Penders, Theate, De Cuyper, Witsel, Lukaku, Lukebakio, De Winter, Seys, Moreira, Vanaken, Saelemaekers, Raskin, Fernandez-Pardo.
Egypt (4-2-3-1) Shobeir; Hany, Fathy, Ibrahim, Fattouh; Lasheen, Attia; Salah, Ashour, Ziko; Marmoush.
Subs: El Shenawy, Soliman, Alaa, Abdelmaguid, Rabia, Abdelmoneim, Trezeguet, Abdelkarim, Hassan, Hafez, Donga, Adel, Saber, Alaa, Zizo.
Referee Ramon Abatti (Brazil)
Full time: Spain 0-0 Cape Verde
Yep, Spain 0-0 Cape Verde. There won’t be a more life-affirming goalless draw at this year’s World Cup; there may never have been one.
Belgium team guide
By Ludo Vandewalle
The head coach, Rudi Garcia, is well aware that the Red Devils’ strength lies in attack. Kevin De Bruyne, Jérémy Doku and Romelu Lukaku can each make a difference in their own way. The defence is, except for goalkeeper Thibaut Courtois, the weak point after the golden generation of Toby Alderweireld, Vincent Kompany, Thomas Vermaelen and Jan Vertonghen gradually retired. “That is why I will always choose four defenders and not five,” Garcia explains. “With five defenders I have to sacrifice an attacking player and that would be a shame.”
Garcia usually opts for a medium block to support the attack and not put too much pressure on the defenders. His reasoning could be described as flawed because there is a problem with Lukaku. He played only 64 minutes for Napoli this season and none for the national team because of injuries until coming off the bench in Tuesday night’s 2-0 win against Croatia, scoring the second goal in added time. He was also deeply affected by the death of his father. Belgium’s all time top scorer – 90 goals – will therefore start the World Cup without any kind of match rhythm.
The other teams in Group G are Iran and New Zealand, who meet in the last of today’s games.
Preamble
Hel and welcome to live, minute-by-minute coverage of Belgium v Egypt at Seattle Stadium. The 2026 World Cup is gathering pace – we’re already into day five, and by tomorrow morning 32 of the 48 teams will have been in action.
So far we’ve seen everything from potential winners to probable also-rans. It’s hard to know where Belgium and Egypt fit on that particular spectrum. Both are adjusting to life after a golden generation, or at least with a dwindling golden generation that no longer glisters as it once did. But they are still serious teams who could do damage in the competition.
This intriguing game should give us a clue as to the extent of that damage.
Kick off 12pm local/8pm BST/3pm EDT/5am AEST
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