What do Yorkshire CCC need to avoid relegation? All you need to know
FIRST, a disclaimer: this correspondent got a D in his maths GCSE and, when he took it again, an E. Still, that won’t stop him from having a damn good crack at working out the points and permutations that Yorkshire need to avoid County Championship relegation.
After several days in a darkened room, with only limited access to food, water and slivers of daylight, it can be confidently (ahem) stated that Yorkshire need 10 points to guarantee that they will be playing top-flight cricket in 2026.
How come, failed maths student?
Well, it’s like this…
Yorkshire are seventh in the table on 146 points.
Durham, in ninth, their opponents at Headingley in the game that starts on Wednesday, are on 140 points, with Hampshire, in eighth, on 142 points.
Durham are in the second and final relegation place, with bottom club Worcestershire (100 points) already down.
Therefore, Yorkshire hold a six-point lead over Durham going into the last match.
Effectively, though, that lead is worth seven points because Yorkshire have won one more game than Durham (the first tie-breaker should sides finish level on points).
In other words, should Yorkshire and Durham finish on equal points, Yorkshire would be above them on most wins.
If Yorkshire win this week (each victory is worth 16 points), all bets are off because Durham would be unable to overtake Yorkshire even if they collected the maximum of eight bonus points available in defeat (five for batting, three for bowling).
In case you don’t know, teams accrue bonus points on this basis: batting for reaching the following totals inside the first 110 overs of their first innings - 250, 300, 350, 400, 450; and bowling for taking three, six and then nine wickets within the same time frame.
So far, so good (hopefully).
Now this is where it starts to get complicated.
If the game at Headingley is drawn (perhaps the likeliest result at this time of year, given the weather), then both Yorkshire and Durham would earn eight points for the draw, meaning that the current gap between them would stay at six points (effectively seven on the most wins tie-breaker).
Therefore, Durham would need to gain seven more bonus points than Yorkshire to overtake them.
Consequently, if you take the maximum points that Durham could get in a drawn game (16) and add it to their current tally, you get 156 - 10 points more than Yorkshire have at present.
Consequently, if Yorkshire collected 10 points from the game (eight for the draw, plus two bonus points) that would be enough to edge Durham out, a figure that would come down with each point that Durham failed to take on the same example.
To add to the complexity (this is cricket, after all), Yorkshire could lose to Durham but still stay up depending on the result of Hampshire’s match against Surrey at Southampton.
As stated, Yorkshire hold a four-point lead over Hampshire and are also above them on the most wins tie-breaker.
Therefore, provided that Hampshire do not gain five more points than Yorkshire, they cannot overtake them.
Did I mention that Sussex, in fifth, and Essex, in sixth, both on 150 points, could also still technically go down?
Perhaps I’d better leave that one.
In the meantime, these GCSE examiners clearly know nowt.
Mental arithmetic?
It’s a piece of cake.