County cricket talking points: six questions before the new season

Essex are defending champions and Middlesex are aiming to return to the top flight. Will we witness an historic summer?
By Gary Naylor for the 99.94 Cricket BlogApart from 1947’s Denis Compton inspired sun-soaked, run-soaked season, perhaps every spring has brought forth the doomsayers reading the demise of the game in the auguries. But the pigeons will still assemble on The Oval’s square (now more a landing strip, stretching from one postcode to another) and the gulls will be on the