County round-up: Relentless Trescothick shows value of experience

So far this season, it has been the young men grabbing the headlines. Warwickshire's Chris Woakes, with 17 wickets and a batting average of 123, is 22. Then there is Ben Stokes, hitting five sixes in an over at 19, and the youngest of them all, 17-year-old Reece Topley, let off school to take 17 wickets for Essex. But the old men are not done yet.

Marcus Trescothick, in his 36th year, has been a grumpy old man lately after two heavy defeats for Somerset, but his disposition will have improved after his first hundred of the season put paid to any danger of another one against Hampshire at the Rose Bowl. It began with the former England opener exercising due restraint, not to waste the good work done by his bowlers on Wednesday. But after taking 112 balls to complete his first half-century, his second came off 77 and the third off 65. It is not untypical, of course, for Trescothick to make the most of an opportunity: of his 44 first-class hundreds, 18 have been converted to 150 or above.

Murray Goodwin, 38, has a similar penchant for big hundreds and Sussex could have done with one at Hove, but the Zimbabwean's 64th career century ended when he was brilliantly caught by Mark Chilton at cover and while Sussex mustered a respectable 290 it left them 300 behind and in danger of a second innings defeat by Lancashire in the space of 18 days.