Hail Essex and Darren Stevens, weep for woeful Nottinghamshire, says Michael Henderson in his county season review

County cricket, devalued over the years by a governing board that knows the price of everything and the value of nothing, is rather like Hamlet in Tom Stoppards Rosencrantz and Guildenstern. Its a play going on in the background while the eyes and ears of the audience are elsewhere. Yet without it there will be no Test cricketers of the future, so it is prudent to pay attention to the doings in the shires, however unfashionable they may appear to be.

It also has interest in its own right and we were granted one last golden hour of the season at Taunton. At 4.30pm last Thursday, with the floodlights on, the sun, whose rays are all ablaze, appeared for the first time since Monday morning.

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