The first wicket I saw in the County Championship this year came when Ollie Stone curled a beauty around the bat of Tom Kohler-Cadmore and shot the bail off middle and off stump. Behind me, Speedway, my seven month old kitten with black-and-white fur like a checkered flag (hence the name), threw up at the top of the stairs.

I didn’t think it was that nasty, but I could relate. Certainly one way to find out your cat likes Somerset.

In fairness, I found myself quite fond of that group by the end of Easter weekend, as well. Dragons are cool, so I was predisposed, but James Rew was the one breathing fire with the bat against reigning champions Nottinghamshire. He followed up a fine 64 in the first innings with a mighty 122 off 184 balls in a 224 run partnership with Kohler-Cadmore for Somerset's second wicket in the third innings. The match ended in a draw when Somerset could only collect three wickets in the fourth, but that didn't take away from Rew's skill and precision that fueled speculation of a national team future and launched several shots to the parking lot.

Not that finding the parking lot at Taunton is all that difficult. The grandstands aren't all that grand, and they weren't all that full owing to the chill lingering in the air throughout the weekend. The weather looked simultaneously intriguing for play and miserable for being outside. Yet that only added to the intimacy of proceedings - it gave me that same "stumbled into Narnia" feeling I had felt when I first fell in love with the game, like I was in on a secret. Lying on my couch, watching the sun come up on the Tennessee countryside out the window while Englishmen put on their cricket whites in the chilly weather with sweaters aplenty, I felt... cozy. If you knew how much I hate that word, you'd understand how profound the feeling was for me to use it.

Cottagecore vibes aside, being a neophyte County Championship follower also feels like something of an act of defiance in the modern age of cricket. As the seductive power of capital winds its way through the sport and turns it into a mass-market game with the IPL at its center, leagues like the County Championship, Sheffield Shield (which I also watched over the winter), and Ranji Trophy feel downright quaint. They fit nicely alongside the “analog movement” by younger generations with shifting tech awareness and habits in an era where everything seems to be getting worse for anyone who isn't a billionaire. Jokes abound that the county game is the purview of pensioners (since those are the only people who can realistically go to the first and last days of games) not helped by the league's title sponsor being Rothesay - a pension insurance company. Anyone under 50 embracing the County Championship is making a retrograde burn that takes them well outside the mainstream the ECB and counties were hoping to inject themselves into with The Hundred. Results so far have been mixed, but there’s definitely money in that proverbial banana stand right now. It’s also something I can get anywhere, and usually done better.

That’s not to say franchise cricket can’t be fun, but it’s a different skillset from the slow-burn domestic red ball game and a different form of entertainment. Put it this way:

America has nothing like the County Championship, not just in terms of cricket format or aesthetics but in terms of mindset. Our society has become clogged with LinkedIn grindset “optimize your life” garbage and “life hacks” that flood the zone and create an infinite scroll of useless noise in the hopes you will absentmindedly hit like and subscribe and that little bell so you know when there’s new slop sponsored by Raid: Shadow Legends. It will make you feel bad for “not being more productive” around the house when you’re not working at your 8+ hour day job - if you’re lucky enough to only need one - because relaxing is weakness. Go go go, scroll scroll scroll, here are ways you can go faster and louder and scroll faster and like more things, use promo code WATCHMYSLOP for 20% off your first order. It’s exhausting.

First class cricket says it doesn't have to be that way. It defies attempts to optimize it - six games ended in a draw the first week. It’s a long season, it seems to say, results will take care of themselves; teams score points with season-defining stakes simply for batting and bowling with skill regardless of the outcome. So come to the cricket or turn it on TV, sit, chill, have a hot beverage (or a cold one if you’re in Australia), be with your thoughts, put the game on in the background. Not every book has to be read cover to cover to be enjoyed, and not every game has to have a winner to be entertaining. Step out for a bit if you need to, or even take a nap and come back after lunch. If this game isn't to your liking, there are eight more to choose from at the same time (unlike franchise cricket), and feel free to bounce around because we'll be here all day.

Whether first class cricket will be around in a decade is harder to say, although pronouncements of the County Championship’s imminent demise are almost as old as the Championship itself. Right now, I get eight hours of commercial-free cricket four days a week with zero commitment or expectation that I should treat every single ball like it’s the biggest thing in the universe or kiss the ring of some rich weirdo who thinks reflective gold numbers look good.

I think I might stick with Somerset, though. This is the club of Sir Viv Richards, who remains a treat to watch on highlights many years after his playing days have passed, and the whole "getting agonizingly close but never winning the big one" thing definitely rings true as someone who grew up with Nashville sports. They’ve made me throw up a time or two, so Speedway and I have something to bond over.

Tara Norris struck early in the One Day Cup opener for reigning champions Lancashire on Saturday. After the bats put Durham in a major hole chasing 304, Norris came in over the wicket in her second over and turned one back in on right-hander Tahlia Wilson that lifted her off stump a good six inches out of the ground before it tumbled end over end. The lefty was getting a bit of swing and terrific movement off the seam that created problems with the new ball, which will be no surprise to anyone who watched her impressive body of work in the T20 World Cup Qualifier in Nepal in January.

The rest of her innings was uneventful - she finished 1/31 in seven overs as Durham were bowled out for 154 - but she's a clear problem in the early overs and should be fun to watch all summer both with Lancs and MI London, where she'll make USD $48,000 and change for a month's work.

Lancashire is back in action on Wednesday (???) against The Blaze, where Ella Claridge is hoping to parlay a good preseason in Spain into some middle-order work early in the season.

After Ian Holland stood in for Pete Handscomb as skipper in the final two games of Leicestershire's triumphant Division Two campaign last year that led them back to the top flight for the first time in 23 years, Dutchy now faces the unenviable task of keeping them there - and staying there is always harder than getting there.

The 35-year-old right-hander got a tad expensive against Sussex, taking 6/159 at Grace Road, but the visitors won by a commanding 222 runs. At the time of this writing, he will have to sit and hope Rishi Patel's stout 133 from 209 can continue with good support from Lewis Hill to get Leics out of a huge hole against Surrey at the Oval two days in. Ollie Pope looked in fine form and Jamie Smith delivered a daddy hundred for Surrey to lead them to a score 520 runs off 676 deliveries. Holland was 1/76 in 22 overs and went for just 18 from 42 batting at three before nicking one back to Ben Foakes.

For someone who has had to go the longest, toughest route for most of his career, this will be nothing new to Holland. He has been an underdog in the game forever, from where he was born to the fact that it took a reality TV show for him to get a first class look. Now he's back after a couple of seasons in Division Two post-Hampshire, and he's the lead underdog of possibly the biggest underdog in English cricket in 2026.

It would be easy to assume that Leicestershire are just happy to be able to go play red ball games at The Oval again, something they haven't done in over a decade, given where they have been for most of the last two decades. It would be easy to say that... and it would also be right. If they walk away from The Oval on Monday with a draw in hand, it's a massive achievement.