I am happy with a draw at this stage, 320 just to avoid the follow-on, you can imagine Bairstow chirping his head off here, he did it at Edgbaston even when we were piling up 500+.

If Kai isnt ready do we need a keeper/batter, is Bracey available?
Maybe Malik up to 2 and Davies to 7 in the meantime

We selected two specialist batsmen for this game who have averages below 20 at the start of the game, that is not acceptable, or sustainable.

Davies currently looks totally out of form, and is unlikely to make a positive contribution to the game. consistantly failing in the first few overs just adds pressure to the rest of the side.

He needs to be replaced by kai Smith now. Continuing to slect him does nothing for the side or for him.
Including Chris Woakes purely as a batsman would produce more runs and have a very positive effect on the moral of the team.

sdobbs wrote:

Why is Davies still opening?

It's at the point he needs to be rested for his own good, in fact seems to have gone past that point. I can only imagine his mental health isn't good to say the least

Spoke to a few at lunch. The reason we bowled even though the pitch looks like a road is because of T20. We thought we needed to bowl to get used to the tempo of the championship again. I don’t really follow this theory as Yorkshire seemed able to adapt.

I think the main thing now is to score big and hopefully have a bowl at them on the last day!

Ben McKinney out of contract and so is Zak Crawley. Two I can see us being interested in but not sure either would be the solution, particularly with Crawley's ongoing break from the first class game. Perhaps an overseas opener for next year a la Latham. We seem to have a number of middle order options (Shaikh, Malik, Jani, even at a push Dandy, Wylie, Nahal, Gekis) but not many openers. It's clearly something that needs to be addressed pretty urgently.

classic Dan Mousley dismissal.

Two pathetic and unnecessary dismissals in quick succession from our two best bats. Lovely.

With no real rain forecast and plenty of time left even if they didn't make us follow-on, we are going to get stuffed unless a miracle happens.

Shambles once again lead by Davies very early dismissal.

The club cannot get any kind of consistency from either batters or bowlers and that has a great deal to do with the coaches.

We are just not good enough

I wonder if we just showed up to this game badly prepared and disorganised (could be badly coached too). Though I didn't see us bowl trust that they bowled too short, wrong ends and the spinner has literally just got here. I saw some of the batting: Mousley looked like he wasn't concentrating, Hain and Wester sucked into a plan Yorkshire had consistently applied. There's time to turn it around - see if they adapt on the fly as the game goes on.

Suthar is showing more application than some of the top order.

Got to be time for Davies and Malik to have a break from the 4 day side.

Loved my trip to Scarborough and had a great time.

I don’t think we were prepared. Wrong choice at toss, wrong lengths, wrong ends for bowlers.

They’ve bowled well and if we can recover then following on would undo the damage bowling first has done!

Malik hopeless all game. Barnard a solid pro!

Keeping situation is clearly a proper conundrum for us. Kai is, currently, a below average gloveman. Davies is a very serviceable gloveman but cannot buy a run right now. What do we do? I feel keeping for hundred odd overs then opening is something Davies cannot cope with, understandably so. He may do better at 6?

Vansh or Shaikh should be smashing Westwood’s door wanting to open, imo.

Big picture, in this game thus far, they've just bowled far better than we did.

Andy wrote:

Keeping situation is clearly a proper conundrum for us. Kai is, currently, a below average gloveman. Davies is a very serviceable gloveman but cannot buy a run right now. What do we do? I feel keeping for hundred odd overs then opening is something Davies cannot cope with, understandably so. He may do better at 6?

Vansh or Shaikh should be smashing Westwood’s door wanting to open, imo.

I agree about Davies at 6, he's a pure Keeper now. As for replacement opener, I'd seriously consider Kai (in other words, a straight swap of roles with Davies) - he often opens for the 2nds and has done pretty well. He'd come in for Malik, who's having a dire time atm. Shaikh is nowhere near good enough for the 1st team, on his form this season.

With only one more CC game before late August we're not in a position to do much experimenting. Bringing one of the kids in for one game is a hiding to nothing. Smith to open and Davies down the order at the expense of Malik sounds ok but we shouldn't do much more.
Use the One Day Cup to give Shaikh and Vansh a run in the side then see if they're ready for the rest of the CC.

Think we've bowled decently enough in this second innings, but we just can't seem to get that bang bang that gets everyone up and creates a bit of drama. Still seems to be enough in the surface.

Only 453 to win then. Well, we put 'em in, about 15 overs tonight, it would be superb if we could get through those.