Yorkshire favourites to recapture Championship crown

The clocks have leapt forward and the scent of mown grass is in the air, so it stands to reason that the new cricket season can only be a matters of days away. The first round of County Championship fixtures get underway on April 7, and despite their near-miss in last season's title run-in, there's no doubting which team Bet365 backs to scoop the spoils come September.

Yorkshire, champions in 2014 and 2015, and vanquished at the last by Middlesex last season, are 2/1 to be crowned county champions in 2017, their skinny odds a testament to how regularly the cream rises to the top over the course of a full first-class season.

That said, it's not been all sweetness and light for Yorkshire in the interim. They parted company with their inspirational coach, Jason Gillespie, last summer (to add insult to injury, he's now signed up with Kent as a short-term fix for their own coaching woes) and with debts mounting and a stand-off with Leeds council threatening their future at Headingley, their off-field issues cannot be ignored either.

Middlesex themselves are next in line, at 5/2, but it is the third-favourites, Surrey, who offer the closest thing to any sort of value, at 5/1. It has to be said, talking Surrey up has become something of an article of faith at the start of every season, and more often than not in recent years, they've fallen short of expectations. All the same, there's something alluring about the blend of youth and experience that they've put together in recent seasons. Maybe this will be the year that they start to gel as a unit.

Further down the pecking order are the Championship outsiders. Somerset, last year's runners-up, are a middling 8/1 - a reflection of how they arguably overachieved in pushing the big boys every step of the way last season, while Lancashire - with Glen Chapple newly installed as coach - an intriguing 14/1 to repeat their title-winning tilt of 2011. Essex, newly promoted, bring up the rear at 20/1.