Can there be a league competition anywhere in the world, in any sport that is more dificult to predict than English cricket's County Championship? We doubt it.
Last season we confidently tipped that Warwickshire and Lancashire would be fighting a relegation battle rather than ending up dualling for the title on the final day.
This year we may even have surpassed that ignominious prediction given that our title tip Durham are floundering at the bottom of Division 1 with their batsmen suffering a collective lapse of form that make Ian Bell's struggles in the winter against Saeed Ajmal seem mild in comparison.
To compound our error, the team that we predicted would be battling it out with Durham for the title were, yes you've guessed it, Lancashire. We should have known that one title every 77 years is quite enough.
The weather hasn't helped and there is still plenty of time left, but in Division 1 at least we can probably already resign ourselves to the fact that we won't be cashing in our chips come September.
Whilst we are clearly appalling tipsters, it is still evident that trying to predict what is going to happen in the County Championship is even more difficult than picking the winning lottery numbers or trying to work out what will happen with the Euro crisis.
Thank God then for Yorkshire - and it's not often we find ourselves saying that. Despite the club doing as much a possible to shoot itself in the foot - chasing Ajmal Shahzad over the Pennines into the grateful arms of Lancashire and making Mitchell Starc go around the world one more time than Phileas Fogg - on the field at least they are justifying our tip that they would win Division 2. Chasing 400 to win at Bristol last weekend was mighty impressive indeed.
But with Colin Graves armed and dangerous, we are sure that Yorkshire's promotion charge still has plenty of time to come off the rails yet.
Where next?
Read our Division 1 previews: Durham, Lancashire, Middlesex, Notts, Somerset, Surrey, Sussex, Warwickshire and Worcestershire
Division 2 previews: Derbyshire, Essex, Glamorgan, Gloucestershire, Hampshire, Kent, Leicestershire, Northants and Yorkshire
County Championship of the week #6
Another 'bloody disgrace' at Yorkshire
10 reasons why neutrals should be glad Lancashire won the County Championship
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oh I would have liked to see this post at the time you did the county championship predictions, I would have shared my own predictions with you
Posted by: Pay per head service | Friday, February 08, 2013 at 01:23