Somerset miss out yet again
Siddhartha Talya
25-Feb-2013
PA Photos
Andy Bull, in his blog in the Guardian, laments another loss for Somerset in the County Championship. The anguish is greater this time as the ultimate victory eluded the team despite Justin Langer’s spirited leadership. Somerset have never won the Country Championship in the tournament's long history.
Durham, of course, just won the championship for the first time themselves, but they've only been trying for 16 years. Somerset have been imagining that each new season could be the season for 117.
There isn't another record quite like it in cricket. Northamptonshire are the only other team never to have won the league, but they didn't join until 1905. Gloucestershire have had a miserable time since the championship was founded in 1890, but at least they enjoyed the age of Grace in the 1870s when they won the unofficial version four times. I suppose Bolton Wanderers, who helped found the football league in 1888 but have never won the championship, have a kinship of a kind.
Justin Langer, in his column for the BBC, says "English cricket should be proud of the standards in Division One - and I can see absolutely no need to change anything about it."
There hasn't been a single game I have been involved in this summer that hasn't felt like a cup final and the pressure associated with this is sure to produce better cricket and therefore tougher cricketers.
Siddhartha Talya is a senior sub-editor at ESPNcricinfo