County cricket: Nottinghamshire go top but Surrey are starting to purr

3. No doubting Thomas’s potential (part two)

Somerset picked a good round to miss last week, but that only matters if you roar back with the win that eluded their rivals. And they had their chances in a splendid seesaw affair with Yorkshire.

Lewis Gregory, the Somerset captain, is morphing from all-rounder to bowler who bats in a reversal of the usual drift in one’s mid-30s. Not that he will care if he can take 6-43 in the first innings of a match. He handed over to his batters and the 21-year-old Josh Thomas backed him up with 136 to give Somerset a first-innings lead of 112.

The Taunton crowd were in good voice, with both openers gone cheaply to Craig Overton, but James Wharton found a useful partner in Joe Root and useful runs down the order gave the Tykes something to bowl at. In a low-scoring match, they had been gifted 57 extras – unacceptable surely for professional cricketers?

A team setting off in pursuit of 260 knows that a century or three decent half-centuries should do it, so long as every batter stays positive and avoids being part of a collapse. When James Rew was out in the 16th over with the score 21-3, the home side had managed neither and, though Thomas would top score again, as Dom Bess and Root spun Yorkshire to victory on the fourth afternoon.

Yorkshire scrambled out of the bottom two, but if Somerset fall short in September yet again they will rue the 16 points they really should have bagged.

4. Carlson checkmates Hampshire

Glamorgan are making a much better fist of Division One cricket than I expected, although praise should be tempered for now given this was not the first time a rock-bottom Hampshire side have suffered an innings defeat this season.

Five years ago, I picked Kiran Carlson as one of my five county cricketers of the year. Since then he has gone on to captain his county in their promotion season and hit 16 first-class centuries, topping out with his first double in this match at the Rose Bowl. Nearly 28, he has probably missed the bus for international honours, but consistent top-flight runs are supposed to be catching the selectors’ eyes these days.

Carlson will certainly have noticed Zain-ul-Hassan, the all-rounder opening for the first time this season and sharing a stand of 318 with his skipper, who might be inclined to send him in at 11am in the next match too.

Only Ben Mayes’ 59 in the first innings, and a “boy stood on the burning deck” knock from captain Ben Brown, following on, kept Hampshire respectable as the nous of Timm van der Gugten and Mason Crane returned 13 wickets between them.

5. Don’t abandon Gay

With Durham arriving in the capital and Middlesex stacking their batting, bunnies were as rare as burrows at Lord’s. It looked like a match full of runs and so it proved despite a sluggish pitch and even more clingy outfield.

The draw kept Durham at the top of the Division Two table, but the match was notable for Emilio Gay’s third century of the season. He has 473 runs at 94, behind only Joe Clarke.

So, will England look at the county game (as has been suggested)? And, if so, how will they weigh Division Two runs against those in the top flight? Ben Stokes was at Lord’s last week and will know Gay from the dressing room, so he is in a good position to make the call.

Emilio Gay has scored three centuries for Durham this season. Photograph: Stu Forster/Getty Images

6. The dying art of Sanderson, Anderson and McGrath

Northamptonshire welcomed in-form Worcestershire to Wantage Road, conceded 164 to Gareth Roderick, and then won by an innings and plenty to go second.

Ricardo Vasconcelos set the platform with a century, but 310 runs were added for the sixth and seventh wickets to take the game away from the visitors. James Sales (in blistering form) and Lewis McManus both tonned up, and Saif Zaib and George Bartlett also chipped in from that very strong Northants lower middle order.

Cue Ben Sanderson who, not for the first time in his career, transformed into Glenn McGrath, seaming it half a bat’s width while homing in on the top of off-stump. Some of his shots were not great, but his 7-31 was an exquisite display of an undervalued art.