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County Championship round-up: Graham Onions lords it over rivals

Jon Culley
Saturday 03 August 2013 23:26 BST
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Bowler of the day Is there a better bowler in county cricket than Graham Onions? Statistically, the Sussex duo, Steve Magoffin and Chris Jordan, are leading the way this season, both passing the milestone of 50 first-class wickets in the match with Derbyshire. But they have only done what Onions has been doing year-on-year in a career in which he now has more than 400 first-class wickets following his 7 for 62 as Middlesex were dismissed for 168 at Lord's. Indeed, it is his favourite ground – outside his home patch at Chester-le-Street – having now taken 42 wickets from eight matches. The battle between Onions and Steven Finn, his England rival, has made for an intriguing sub-plot. Each dismissed the other, Finn getting Onions in both Durham's innings.

Grandstand finish for Moeen

Batsman of the day Worcestershire will need to put together an impressive sequence of results over the final third of the season if they are to avoid another year in Division Two of the Championship but they can at least applaud the success of their Moeen Ali, whose 59 against Kent enabled him to claim the honour of being first to 1,000 first-class runs purely from domestic cricket. Moeen, who hit a career-best 250 against Glamorgan last month, has two centuries and seven half-centuries this season. He reached the milestone ahead of Middlesex's Sam Robson, whose dismissal for six in the second innings against Durham at Lord's left him on 993. Only Joe Root (1,118) and Chris Rogers (1,064) – both on Test duty at Old Trafford – have scored more. Root's tally is from only 13 innings, compared with Moeen's 20.

Every little hurts for Tresco

Extras Has Father Time finally caught up with Marcus Trescothick? The veteran former England opener scored almost 7,500 first-class runs in five seasons between 2007 and 2011, including 25 centuries, but is finding the going much tougher now and is in danger of completing a first-class season without a century for the first time in 16 years. Trescothick bagged a pair for the first time in his career against Sussex last month and was dismissed for two against Nottinghamshire at Taunton yesterday. By his standards, 513 Championship runs so far is a modest effort.

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