County round-up: England hope and Yorkshire opener Alex Lees impresses again

Batsman of the day

Alex Lees, the 20-year-old Yorkshire opener tipped to follow Joe Root into the England team, added another 104 to his overnight 171 not out before Yorkshire declared with a mammoth 617 for five on the board against Derbyshire at Chesterfield.

The left-hander’s 275 not out gave him the distinction of the highest individual county score of the season, having overtaken Yorkshire captain Andrew Gale’s 272 against Nottingham at Scarborough.

Lees, who began the season with a first-ball duck against Leeds-Bradford MCCU in April, hit 38 fours before indulging himself by smashing the first six of his first-class career, off seamer Tim Groenewald, with his penultimate scoring stroke.

Bowler of the day

It has not been an outstanding summer for spinners in the Championship, not helped by the hottest weather of the year arriving just as four-day cricket takes a back seat, for the most part, to Twenty20.

Yet Lancashire’s Simon Kerrigan is doing a fine job flying the flag for the slower bowlers, the left-armer finishing with 12 in the match against Glamorgan at Old Trafford, giving Lancashire the sniff of an unlikely last-day victory with a spell of four wickets in 15 balls. That saw the Welsh side slip to 98 for five, which left them just five runs in front. A century from Gareth Rees saved the draw for Glamorgan, but Kerrigan’s 45 wickets for the season leaves only the Sussex seamers Chris Jordan and Steve Magoffin with more.

Extras

Darren Pattinson, brother of Australia seamer James and famous for his out-of-the-blue call-up for England against South Africa in 2008, made a winning start to his new career as a greyhound trainer when Zipping Josh came home first in the opening race at the Cranbourne track in Melbourne last night.

Pattinson, 33, who left Nottinghamshire at the end of last season, does not have a contract with Victoria next season but may play for Melbourne Renegades in the next Big Bash Twenty20 tournament.

Australia’s Chris Rogers and Worcestershire’s Moeen Ali are joint favourites to become the first batsman to notch 1,000 first-class runs this season after Joe Root’s dismissal for six at Lord’s left the Yorkshireman on 930, 29 behind Rogers – whose 959 includes 780 for Middlesex in the Championship – and 23 behind Ali. But all three are under pressure from Rogers’s Middlesex team-mate Sam Robson, who hit 146 against Sussex at Hove yesterday to