Jack Shantry

Jack Shantry turned the clock back to a match played more than 100 years ago when scoring a career-best 106 in a remarkable Worcestershire recovery against Gloucestershire

With another English season approaching, George Dobell sat down with five stalwarts of the professional scene to chat about the latest changes in the county game

Worcestershire Rapids allrounder Joe Leach took a hat-trick from the first three balls of the match but finished on the losing side as Northamptonshire Steelbacks edged home by 21 runs

Worcestershire made a big move in the LV= County Championship relegation struggle by completing an emphatic victory over Hampshire by an innings and 33 runs after 95 minutes on the fourth morning at New Road.

At Trent Bridge, where the white stands shone white hot, and the sky was parched blue, Nottinghamshire batted all day in defiance of the relegation gremlins that now cling around their season

It was a day when the honours, in the grand scheme of things, were too early to dish out. But Worcestershire enjoyed enough success at the beginning of the day to claim it.

Embarrassing though this was for Somerset, bowled out for just 90 and struggling to work out why they have lost all three of their matches so far, Worcestershire can only be encouraged.

Yorkshire's batsmen, led by skipper Alex Lees and Tim Bresnan, battled hard and successfully to all but match Worcestershire's very decent first-innings 311

Whether from tension, disbelief or joy, some Worcestershire members gathered under the Graeme Hick pavilion on Friday afternoon had tears on their cheeks

They will call it "Shantry's Match" and men reading about it will think themselves accursed they were not there

This is both a cricket match and a poignant reunion. Four Surrey players once sported the pears sable on their shirts

England would love a left-arm quick like Mitchell Johnson. Jack Shantry is not one, but his own, rather unqiue, style of left-arm seam put Worcestershire into a position of overwhelming dominance at The Oval

Northamptonshire's bowlers did their job as the county aim to secure promotion, but the batsmen still have work to do

Worcestershire's Tom Fell cruelly missed out on a maiden first-class century as the rain-wrecked Division Two fixture with Kent squelched to a draw at New Road

Worcestershire edged closer to their third County Championship win of the season as Glamorgan continued to take a pounding at New Road.

In-form Essex opener Tom Westley held off Jack Shantry-inspired Worcestershire for four hours

Worcestershire produced a stunning bowling performance to condemn Group A leaders Netherlands to only their second CB40 defeat of the campaign courtesy of a nine-wicket victory at The Hague.

Yorkshire remain well placed to earn an County Championship double over fellow strugglers Worcestershire although the hosts made heavy weather of their task on the third day at Scarborough

Worcestershire moved into third place in the Friends Life t20 North Group after squeezing home by six runs in a tense, low-scoring battle with Midlands rivals Warwickshire at New Road