In this year’s Foreword, I commented that bowlers seemed to have bowled fewer maidens in 2023 than in 2022 – without fully checking that the facts supported my assertion. But now I can confirm that this was correct, at least as far as Division One went. So why might this have been? Tallying up the bowling figures for the eight counties that played in both seasons, so we’re comparing like with like, we find a few noticeable changes. First of all, there were just 2907 maidens bowled be...
