Twenty20 / Editor / 25 June 2007 /

The Twenty20 season continues apace this week, and Wednesday sees two of the biggest games of the campaign as Yorkshire and Lancashire meet in their second Roses match inside three days and Hampshire host their fierce rivals Sussex at the Rose Bowl in a game that will be televised live on Sky.

The Red Rose and White Rose counties are scheduled to face one another on Monday at Headingley, while Hampshire take on Middlesex but both these games could fall foul of the weather. Sussex take on Kent on Tuesday, so punters should keep an eye on developments before having a bet as form can really change quickly in this form of the game.

The story of the tournament so far, apart from the weather affecting plenty of games, has been the slow start made by a number of the pre-season favourites, and with four of those in action in these games, it is remarkable that they have managed just one victory between them.

That sole victory came from Lancashire, who secured a narrow win over Durham in their opening game on Friday before crashing to the in-form Nottinghamshire Outlaws in their televised outing on Saturday at Trent Bridge, and they remain prominent in the outright market at 11.5.

The Lightning's defeat again showed up their lack of consistency in the batting line-up, even though they posted a fairly competitive score of 163-7. Five of the eight batsmen who came to the crease in that game reached at least 20, but none of them made it past Gareth Cross's top score of 33 - a jaunty 25-ball knock including two massive sixes.

At least in the opening victory Mal Loye gave Old Trafford fans, and possibly top run-scorer punters, something to cheer about with a fantastic unbeaten 89 off 62 balls, and they will be looking for something similar from him on Wednesday to help them bounce back to form.

But even in that game against the Dynamos they managed only one partnership of note, so Yorkshire will have some hopes of undoing the damage they caused by losing to Leicestershire in their opening game at Grace Road - a game remembered mainly for Jeremy Snape's fine hat-trick.

The Phoenix were very competitive for most of that defeat to a team filled with Twenty20 specialists, and they would have fancied their chances when Gerard Brophy and Craig White took them to 57-0 off seven-plus overs in a game reduced to 16 overs by rain.

However when push came to shove and they had to up the scoring rate even further, Snape, Jim Allenby and David Masters all took key wickets as they lost six for 40 to make a late Chris Gilbert-inspired rally count for nothing.

Yorkshire are one of a number of sides to completely change their batting line-up for Twenty20 games, and that should be taken seriously by run-scorer punters - Brophy, for example, who topped the charts with 44 in that defeat to the Foxes, usually bats no higher than five, while opener Jacques Rudolph came in at six.

Their strength looks to be the pace attack, with Darren Gough, Jason Gillespie and Tim Bresnan all decent options, and they have four or five other players who can turn their arm over to good effect. However, they lack a decent spinner in their line-up, given their reluctance to give Adil Rashid a game in one-day cricket.

That sensible approach could cost them on a pitch that takes spin, and against a side that could employ as many as three slow bowlers - Sanath Jayasuriya and Brad Hodge joining front-liner Gary Keedy.

The way the pitch plays could play a huge role in this game, making in-play betting options even more attractive than usual.

But Yorkshire's slow start sees them among the rank outsiders to lift the trophy at 32. Based on previous seasons played in this format, they will need to win at least five of their remaining seven games (before Monday's clash) to progress to the quarter-finals.

Hampshire and Sussex are both off the early pace in the South Division with one point apiece from their first two games - the Hawks scored theirs in a tie with Kent that they had looked in a good position to win, while Sussex had a no result after their match with Middlesex fell foul to the weather.

Sussex's struggles in all competitions have been one of the big mysteries of the season so far and they were soundly beaten in their first game of the Twenty20 season, despite a fantastic century from Murray Goodwin, who bludgeoned five sixes and nine fours in an unbeaten 102.

But apart from his ever-reliable knock, the rest of the Sharks' struggling line-up managed a paltry 59 runs at barely a run-a-ball, not a scoring rate that is going to scare anybody and the main reason why Essex were able to chase down their target with 17 balls to spare. That was a massive winning margin in this style of cricket and Sussex are now as long as 36 to add this title to the 2006 County Championship.

The loss of Matt Prior has clearly hit their batting line-up, but apart from that they seem to be just about at full-strength, with at least four top quality bowlers - even in the absence of leading all-rounder Michael Yardy who has also been added to the England one-day party.

Mushtaq Ahmed and Rana Naved-Ul-Hasan will have to up their game even further if the Sharks are to get themselves back in with a chance of more glory this season, but at least with seven games to go and maybe three teams from the South qualifying, a team with as many options as they have should not be ruled out just yet.

Hampshire, 27 outright, twice looked in a good position to win their season opener against Kent and then fell foul to a big innings from Ryan McLaren (46 runs off 19 balls). The Hawks did rally to set up a tense finale with just one run required off the last ball and they dismissed Greg Lamb to leave the scores tied.

But they also fall foul of international call-ups as stand-in skipper Dimitri Mascarenhas gets a chance of his first England recognition later in the week and that means the possible return of Shane Warne from injury could be even more important.

Warne missed the defeat by Surrey after injuring his hand and without him and Mascarenhas, it is asking a lot of an inexperienced attack to perform above themselves, with Stuart Clark also having come to the end of his spell as one of their foreign players.

Batsman Adam Voges, who took Clark's place, will hope his run of scores does not get even worse after scoring just two and one in his first two innings in the country. At his best the 27-year-old can be a destructive player, scoring at 140 runs per 100 balls in his brief Twenty20 career (eight games) in Australia.

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