April a profitbale month as batters continue to rack up runs

County cricket in April: rains, ravenous winds and runs…lots and lots of runs. Scour the nation’s grounds from the grandest to the grizzliest to find bowlers with hands on hips, rye smiles on faces and eyes heavy at the sight of another crunching boundary, another wasted delivery. Ensued by the pitter patter of numb hands in a scattered crowd the runs rack up on the scoreboard. The hopefuls and has-beens of English cricket re-discover their fluidity … Whoever blurted so insolently that it was a chore to hold a bat in April?

As the final few leather orbs were bowled at the closing of the County Championship’s opening cluster of fixtures, six of the eight matches in both the divisions ended in a draw. Testament in part to the elements, and in part to that Winter rust, a century was nonetheless scored in each of the encounters. And the story is of a similar narrative in the recent round, save for that absorbing aberration as witnessed in the stands of Taunton’s County Ground. We’re two games in and Darren Stevens has taken just the one wicket. Something must be in the air.

And ignoring the perennial bitterness, you’d be correct. Thus far in the eight Division One fixtures to have taken place since the start of the season the average first inning score is 345.

Remarkable, too, seeing as England failed to reach this total for the duration of the Ashes, and surpassing it just twice in the whole of last Summer. Is the burden of the badge too great? Or is the stature of opponent simply too steep? Whatever it may be, despite ostensibly being the latter, Test cricket in this country is on its knees, waiting to be scythed down into the bleak oblivion.

It’s only hope, with the exception of Rob Key, is the County Championship season. Across the first eight days of its refreshed, re-visited format 35 centuries were recorded. That’s a lot of lofted bats. To those startled at such a start it swiftly flooded through to their anal-retentive minds that batting in April is indeed less a slog, but more a serenity. There’s a naivety here, too. It’s as if everyone believes the pitches will be tinged with green, owing to more lateral ball movement thus cartwheeling an incalculable number of stumps. That couldn't be further from the truth.

In reality groundsmen from Somerset to Sussex, Durham to Derbyshire have had months to prepare these pitches. A misconception purely inscribed due to the amount of games lost to the relentless rains that we so often experience, April is not a hazard. Since 2015, there have been more hundreds scored per game – 1.58 – than any other month in the year. Batting averages actually decrease as the season expands, with the past six years illustrating an April average of 32.14, whilst September can only muster a mere 27.98.

The issue at hand is not playing too much cricket in the earlier months of the year, instead playing too much in August and September, where matches are a constant and the pitches have deteriorated. Take the eloquently named Incora County Ground as an example. On Sunday Tom Haines and Cheteshwar Pujara (yes, that’s not a misprint) shared a stand of 351 in 119 overs, a Sussex record for any wicket against Derbyshire. Haines batted for a near eleven hours over the last two days as he fell on a career high 243, whilst Pujara departed unscathed on 201 as both teams shook hands, drowned with fatigue.

What we’ve failed to mention is Derbyshire’s Shan Masood’s made 239, implicating that this battle between two of the lowest scorers in English cricket last year yielded three double-tons (a feat managed just eleven times in the history of first-class cricket) and 1,192 runs across three innings. Docile doesn't begin to cut it. And a similar thing was seen at Chelmsford, where Essex and Kent combined for 1,163 runs. Ben Compton, Michael Burgess, James Bracey and many, many more proving impenetrably as the foundations for a prosperous offensive push are being laid.

In theory, then, selection to the national side for the Summer Tests suits those with the willow more than it does the cherry. But a batter friendly environment only spotlights the finest bowlers: Craig Overton and Matt Parkinson. Overton’s 38 overs bowled have spawned an average of 6.69. Yikes. Keep that up, and you may just replace Stuart Broad and James Ander…oh wait. In the spin department England have yearned for a world class turner of the ball. He has been here all along. Parkinson is a generational talent, overlooked and overshadowed by Jack Leach. Surely his time is now.

A headache it is to be, then, for our infinitely wise national selectors who are without a captain and a coach, and for a Test side who have won one of their previous 17 matches. An overhaul is needed. But with this transition arrives hope for those once out of discussion, out of sight. Now they have something to aspire to, and the bowlers are certainly feeling the strain.