Fine margins and momentum it feels like currently. Finding ways to lose games.

Our last over goes for four with three wickets off the last three balls. Find the way we approach the middle overs tedious, lots of swinging and missing at Scrimshaw who was executing a simple short at the big boundary plan.

Barnard looks a little off the pace as a T20 captain. The loss of Briggs, Lintott, and Hassan Ali as three incredibly experienced T20 players and bloody good bowlers has hurt immeasurably it seems. Desperate for Gleeson to come back in to at least offer some threat first up.

For what it’s worth, I feel pretty sorry for Taz Ali who bowled immensely in that first game at Glos and has been asked to do a relatively thankless and almost experimental job thereafter.

Bowled three balls with no one behind square today, all of which went to the boundary and two from false shots. Extremely talented and full of potential, but not being given the surroundings to demonstrate his ability enough for me.

Our last over was disappointing and I did wonder at the time if 208 was enough but even if we got another 10, it doesn't mean we would have won as exactly the same thing can't happen if the circumstances change. But, that was defendable but the 'Powerplay' was awful, too many short balls and it continued into the 12 before we appeared to bring it back slightly. I cannot see the point of bowling it halfway down the pitch, full balls proved to be difficult to hit and so our best batting was followed by our worst bowling. What to do, is it too late, try Gilchrist and Bamber or change the name back to 'Birmingham Bears'. Just a thought, some bloke called Lintott took 4-1-19-3 today v Surrey, just saying.

Well some of you did say it was our worse team in years. I didn’t think we’d be 0-4. A few brighter points today but Northants looked a stronger team with the bat.

A lot of our bowling was too short and easily hit to the boundary. Annoying that Jake Lintott is with Kent - they thrashed Surrey and Jake produced an excellent bowling display with figures of 4 overs, 1 maiden and 3/19! We really could've done with him in that form today!

Take Lynn out of their side and I don't think they have much batting but we fed them too many runs with short rubbish too often. A few tighter overs early on and we might have had enough to win.

paulbear wrote:

Take Lynn out of their side and I don't think they have much batting but we fed them too many runs with short rubbish too often. A few tighter overs early on and we might have had enough to win.

Which is where Gleeson is so good. IPL has finished so he should be back for Fridays game away to Notts.

Averages after game 4 https://countycrickethub.net/team-averages.html?teamid=16&comp=3&year=2026

cjav1874 wrote:

For what it’s worth, I feel pretty sorry for Taz Ali who bowled immensely in that first game at Glos and has been asked to do a relatively thankless and almost experimental job thereafter.

Bowled three balls with no one behind square today, all of which went to the boundary and two from false shots. Extremely talented and full of potential, but not being given the surroundings to demonstrate his ability enough for me.

really good point IMO- he bowled better than his figures suggested yesterday even if there were two horrible long-hops in there

the seam bowling especially in the power play was/is a real concern- Woakes looks like he is bowling right back down in speed to the low 80's mph compared to a few years ago when he added those couple of yards of pace, he and OHD just look really anemic and hittable on what is proving to be a good batting track so far, no pace and they aren't extracting whatever is there to be extracted from the new ball. the poor pp bowling also means Thompson is bound to end up bowling at least one early over and in the PP he's pretty much guaranteed to go for 10s- he did show his ability to bowl consistent yorkers at the death though which is good. if we ever have a close game he may even get to defend something, one day.

turns out Webster can bat in T20 after all, ha. Still noteworthy how long it took him to get going.

LeicesterExile wrote:

What a disappointment. But what is the point in playing Kai at 8 behind Woakes and Thompson.they would have been better off having Davies as keeper because as opener at least he may have scored half a dozen!

I thought it was a fair enough call, Thompson is more a threat to hit long balls than Smith, in theory Woakes may be too although i have no idea where his batting is nowadays as he has had precious little time at the crease in white ball cricket in the last couple of years

if we're being flexible in the order i think there also is a case for bringing Smith in earlier under some circumstances to face the spin in the middle overs, he's a good busy player of spin and between the wickets and would be a good foil for Hain.

The_Lickey_Banker wrote:

Bald_Reynard wrote:

Inside-edge wrote:

Meanwhile Lintott has 3 Surrey wickets for 19 off his 4 overs.

I just logged in to post that very same thought - you beat me to it!

And how our current spin bowlers doing in this T20 season?! Of course, its all to do with welcoming wickets in Kent's group?!

> Or the renewed enthusiasm of someone who feels he is being valued and used to his full potential by his new 1st Team Coach!!

sadly i think this is likely to be true. If the result of Lintott going is Taz Ali blossoms, though, I can still see why they did it.

ITE7376 wrote:

The_Lickey_Banker wrote:

Bald_Reynard wrote:

Inside-edge wrote:

Meanwhile Lintott has 3 Surrey wickets for 19 off his 4 overs.

I just logged in to post that very same thought - you beat me to it!

And how our current spin bowlers doing in this T20 season?! Of course, its all to do with welcoming wickets in Kent's group?!

> Or the renewed enthusiasm of someone who feels he is being valued and used to his full potential by his new 1st Team Coach!!

sadly i think this is likely to be true. If the result of Lintott going is Taz Ali blossoms, though, I can still see why they did it.

Westwood is racking up quite a few minus points this season - not just with Lintott. A long way to go, but if our T20 campaign carries on like it has, I think he might need to be concerned about his long term future as 1st Team Coach? The club has long targeted a successful Blast, as a principal aim.

Really?! Please compare the 4day side under Robinson to the 4day side under Westwood, it's like night and day. We're so much better of under Westwood.

yeah the 4 day form was the first thing I thought, even though i tend to focus more on the T20 as I'm actually able to get to the games. say a top 3 finish in the CC absolutely should insulate his job almost irrespective of T20 results, although a winless season may get some attention

Im really surprised by the criticism of Westwood, we were in such a bad place under Robinson, I think people forget.

Re. the t20, Barnard's captaincy is absolutely boggling my mind, he just seems to randomly rotate through the bowlers hoping for a wicket and he freezes when teams go on the charge against us. I mentioned during last seasons ODC that the other senior players would often have to step in and set the fields for him. I remember one example v Sussex last season with Alsop on the charge against us and Lintott having to run in off the boundary, stopping the game mid over and literally telling Ed where to put people, you could hear him. 2 balls later wicket.

As has been pointed out previously we don't necessarily have those cricket brains available to us anymore, and it's left Barnard a bit exposed here. Rabbit caught in the headlights and times.

I think that should/could be the last we see of OHD in this format. He's so hittable, for example any shorter change up balls look so easy to hit out the park.

Thompson seems to go to Yorker every ball for his death bowling, yet in that 19th over he executed so badly that the first four balls were all full tosses.

The batting still looks one batsman light, I think Smith needs to be tried higher up the order.

And I agree with the comments about Barnard's captaincy in this format. Some of the field placings were poor. The Taz Ali over has already been mentioned and there was another over (I can't remember who bowled but it was a seamer from the pavilion end) where we didn't have anyone at cow corner and two boundaries were one bounce fours over mid wickets head. To then top if off by bowling OHD in the last over who had gone for 48 off 3 was bizarre.

The positives are Taz still looks promising, Tariq looked effective yesterday and Webster's batting was what we hoped for.

Unfortunately there are just too many weak spots in the team this year so now we just have to hope it's not a totally embarrassing campaign.

It was interresting to see Charlie Taylor was sat with the squad and warming up before the game. Probably a debut for him in the Oone Day Cup, or even a dead rubber T20 game this season for him.

He is probably the most promising player in our entire youth program.

Andy wrote:

Im really surprised by the criticism of Westwood, we were in such a bad place under Robinson, I think people forget.

well why not, people were crying for last year's leading scorer to be dropped after 2 bad games after all ;-)

in seriousness, I agree with you.

Mikkyk wrote:

I think that should/could be the last we see of OHD in this format. He's so hittable, for example any shorter change up balls look so easy to hit out the park.

Thompson seems to go to Yorker every ball for his death bowling, yet in that 19th over he executed so badly that the first four balls were all full tosses.

The batting still looks one batsman light, I think Smith needs to be tried higher up the order.

And I agree with the comments about Barnard's captaincy in this format. Some of the field placings were poor. The Taz Ali over has already been mentioned and there was another over (I can't remember who bowled but it was a seamer from the pavilion end) where we didn't have anyone at cow corner and two boundaries were one bounce fours over mid wickets head. To then top if off by bowling OHD in the last over who had gone for 48 off 3 was bizarre.

The positives are Taz still looks promising, Tariq looked effective yesterday and Webster's batting was what we hoped for.

Unfortunately there are just too many weak spots in the team this year so now we just have to hope it's not a totally embarrassing campaign.

agree with pretty much all of that

> Thompson seems to go to Yorker every ball for his death bowling, yet in that 19th over he executed so badly that the first four balls were all full tosses.

thats fine by me really- i'd rather someone has a clear plan than starting to make it up as they go along and improvise under pressure, and low full tosses can be just as difficult to get away.
it seemed to me Thompson's boundary balls came more from when he tried the slower ball change-ups than the full & fast stuff

Tariq looked effective yesterday and Webster's batting was what we hoped for.
Tariq has been very tidy 3 games out of 4, and Beau's batting yesterday significantly outperformed my expectations.

tariq is really a crafty bugger, I'd have to watch him from side-on for an innings or two to try and work out what exactly he's doing but he does seem to vary pace and flight quite a lot, even if the variations in 'flight' are really down to how low/high his arm is rather than really giving the ball air like a classic spinner.

bit of a dilemma in the context of webster's batting, does Mousley's return mean he automatically goes in at 3? My take on webster is he's like a big ocean going supertanker, he takes a long time to point himself in the right direction but can have a huge amount of momentum when he does. In that sense him coming in at number 6 with like 6 or 3 overs left may not be ideal as he doesn't look like the dude to hit sixes from ball one. in that sense no3 suits him as it gives him the seemingly large number of balls he needs to warm up and score quickly.
But is he worth a place in the top 5 when Mousley is available? shifting the dude who just got a near-ton down the order would seem strange especially as I'm not sure he's suited to it. really not sure.