County Championship 2014: Round 5 Team of the Week

Wins were hard to come by in the latest round of England's County Championship, with only Warwickshire—swatting aside Middlesex inside 3 days—and Kent, who confidently outplayed Surrey for their first win of the season, forcing positive results.

After many of the form players from the earlier rounds such as Gary Ballance and Chris Jordan joined up with Peter Moores' England ODI squad, it was a mixture of County stalwarts and England discards who really stood up to be counted this week.

Read on for a Best XI made up from this week's top performers in Round 5 of the County Championship.

Note: All data and statistics taken from ESPNCricinfo

Andrew Gale (Yorkshire): Having dropped himself for the previous round to accommodate Joe Root, Gale made the most of a batting-friendly track at Durham to register one of four hundreds in a high-scoring draw.

Phil Jaques (Nottinghamshire): Classy Australian left-hander Phil Jaques kicked on for the first time this season, following up 64 in the last round and 65 in the first innings with an unbeaten 150 in another high-scoring affair at Taunton.

Peter Trego (Somerset): Trego catapulted Somerset to maximum batting points with a knock that wouldn't have been out of place in the Indian Premier League, taking his side from 336/9 with a brisk 86 from 71 balls.

Nathan Buck (Leicestershire): The 23-year-old former England Under-19 seamer will be hoping to put an injury-ravaged few years behind him this season, and the signs look promising as he returned his best first-class figures of 5/76 to reduce an Essex line-up shorn of Alastair Cook and Ravi Bopara to 281 all out at Chelmsford.

Following his unbeaten 172 in the curtain-raiser at Hampshire, Daryl Mitchell continued his blistering start to the season with arguably the most outstanding performance of the round.

Making 109 in a first innings where no team-mate passed 28 runs, he bettered that with 151 not out in the second innings in what was generally a low-scoring game, leaving him sitting pretty at the top of the batting averages with 532 runs at 133.

A model of consistency at the top of the Durham batting order over the last few seasons, Mark Stoneman had endured a dreadful start to the County season following his ton against the MCC in Abu Dhabi, scoring just 20 runs in four innings against Northants and Somerset.

Like Andrew Gale in the first innings, he found the Durham pitch a great aid for rediscovering his form, and his effort was all the more impressive as early wickets fell around him.

Whilst four of the Yorkshire top six passed 90, Durham were in a spot of bother when Sangakkara went for a duck to leave them 70/3. Stoneman withstood Ryan Sidebottom and Tim Bresnan as top-order team-mates floundered, dropping anchor for a hundred with able assistance from fellow centurion Michael Richardson who came in at five, ensuring that Yorkshire's mammoth 589 did not lead to defeat.

Kent's first victory of the summer was built on the bedrock of a fine batting display, with skipper Rob Key leading from the front as they chalked up a commanding first innings lead of 150.

Yet to reach fifty in four previous knocks this season, Key was composed in making 126 at the top of the order, setting the tone with an opening partnership of 101 with Sam Northeast after his bowlers had reduced Surrey to 285.

Matching Rob Key stroke for stroke was the former West Indies Test left-hander Brendan Nash, who also made a first innings 126 to place Kent in the ascendancy.

Whilst Key did the hard work seeing off the new ball, Nash ensured the platform was not wasted as the pair put on just shy of 200, with the left-hander going on to equal his captain's score. When the new ball softened, Nash was able to play more fluently and took just 157 balls to make 126, including 16 fours and a six.

On an Old Trafford pitch where most bowlers thrived and batsmen cowered, Michael Yardy was the game's outstanding batsman.

Like many batsmen recognised this week, Yardy put aside an indifferent start to the season, where he had top-scored with 28 across five innings, to make 139 against Lancashire. Only one other batsmen in the game, Lancashire's Alexander Davies, passed fifty and he perished soon after on 59.

Yardy added 45 useful runs second time around to help set Lancashire a target, but his potentially match-winning contribution was in vain as only 8.4 overs were possible on the final day due to rain.

One player perhaps unlucky not to be more prominent in discussions around vacancies in the England batting order is Samit Patel, seemingly discarded for good after failing to make fifty in five Tests on the sub-continent.

The Notts all-rounder has started the season with some convincing performances with the bat, none more so than against Somerset at Taunton this week.

Following up two half-centuries in his first three games, including 93 against a James Anderson-powered Lancashire, Patel struck 22 fours on his way to top-scoring in the Notts first innings with 132, and followed this with another fluent 75 from 83 balls in a century stand with Phil Jaques in the second.

Another player with England Test playing days firmly in his rearview mirror is Warwickshire stumper Tim Ambrose, who turned in the outstanding contribution from a wicketkeeper this week.

Ambrose had little to do with the Middlesex wickets that fell, taking just three catches across the two innings, but it was in front of the stumps that he helped to turn the game in favour of the Bears. Coming in at 104/4, his imperious 167 helped to propel his side to a total of 462 and a formidable first innings lead of nearly 300 that Middlesex were unable to erase with another knock, tumbling to an innings defeat.

The other driving force behind Warwickshire's destruction of Middlesex was Kiwi Jeetan Patel, who turned in an outstanding all-round display.

Patel joined Ambrose at the crease in an eighth-wicket partnership of 175, making only his second first-class hundred in the process, before taking 4/78 to help bowl Middlesex to an innings defeat. The wicket of Aussie Chris Rogers for 82, fresh off a match-winning double hundred and known for digging in at the crease, was undoubtedly the key in breaking any resistance, triggering a collapse from 155/1 to 248 all out.

Another spinner who had a good week building on a solid start to the season, which has now seen him claim 18 wickets in his last three appearances, was Glamorgan stalwart Dean Cosker.

His impressively economical return of 5/39 from 29.2 overs in the first innings was his second five-for in as many games at Cardiff this season, and another strong display in the second innings saw him take four of the Worcestershire wickets to fall, giving him match figures of 9/163. Not bad for somebody at the tail-end of his second decade with the club.

Boasting a modest first-class career with 221 wickets at nearly 34 apiece, Gareth Andrew bowled out of his skin against Glamorgan in the most eye-catching seam bowling performance of the week.

Glamorgan were skittled for just 155 in their first innings, and Andrew was the architect of their downfall with 5/40, his scalps including four of the home side's top five.

An excellent start to the second innings saw him clean-bowl Jacques Rudolph, but he could not quite repeat his earlier heroics as Glamorgan clung on for a draw.

Capping off an excellent week for spinners was Kent youngster Adam Riley, who continues to flourish as teammate James Tredwell is otherwise engaged with England.

As Key and Nash put the runs on the board that set up Kent's first Championship win of the summer, Riley capitalised with aplomb, with four first innings wickets ripping the heart out of Surrey's middle order.

He went one better in the second innings, snaring Zafar Ansari, Davies and Roy for the second time in the game on his way to 5/78, leaving Kent with the simple task of knocking off 54 runs for victory.