28, in his prime. Very good T20 bowler, not seen much of him in 4 day but his stats are decent.
If he’s committed to playing all formats, it would be a really good signing.

Thought we batted well in the last 8 or so of our overs.

They batted really well at the end, but our bowling wasn’t good enough. To me, and it’s a recurring theme now, the captaincy was the ultimate difference.

We let it meander at the start of that big partnership. They weren’t really under any pressure, took singles easily and cashed in on the bad balls which were at least once an over.
Then the bowling changes, Garton got 1 over after going for 6, but you’ve got Hassan going at 12, Mousley at 11, Barnard at 11, bowling 4 each. And it wasn’t like they had 1 bad final over, they were pretty consistently expensive in all their overs from the start.
And as pointed out, 1 to win but 2 on the fence, but not 2 out with a plan, 2 out hoping for awful batting. Made to look worse by a 70mph wide full toss.

GerryShedd wrote:

I fully agree with the criticism that the Club should not have allowed him to get away from us but that's a different issue.

This has become a bit of a trend. Overly willing to sign players on trial or from elsewhere, than to persist with our own youth.
We seem to still have an attitude from 20 years ago. That players have to spend at least a couple of years playing 2’s on their first contract.
But young players these days are happy to leave to get game time. Also you look how the likes of Surrey, Sussex (slightly different reasoning), Essex, Durham and some others have gone about it, they identify high potential players, then back them young and get them in the side even if they’re not quite as good as an external player they could sign. They give them time in the team to reach that level. Then only sign “marquee” players who really improve a side or who cover a specific gap.
The talent is there, but there’s a clear gap between academy and first team at the moment.

GerryShedd wrote:

BristolBear wrote:

What a bizarre innings by Yorkshire. 32 runs short but only 5 wickets down.
They were ahead of us in the powerplay and at the halfway stage for both runs and wickets.
Malan gets out and it was like the brakes slammed on.
Thought we bowled well second half, but they made us look very good with bat and ball in the last 5 overs of both innings.
Similar performance to Northants, the difference in outcome primarily down to the quality of the opposition.

Maybe we were very good in the last five overs of both innings - just saying!

We were good. But they made us look a lot better. I wasn’t sitting there thinking this is masterful death bowling. Or that we were amazing because we were getting away repeated Yorkers.

Exiled Bear wrote:

So whenever we do well it’s just because the opposition are rubbish?

In fairness, the sides we’ve beaten are all in the bottom 3. And I’d say apart from the first game, our performances have stayed pretty consistent, we saw against Northants the difference between the top and bottom of the table.
I suspect we’ll end up somewhere from 3rd to 6th depending on form and injuries. Not the best, not the worst, in a tight battle in the middle.

What a bizarre innings by Yorkshire. 32 runs short but only 5 wickets down.
They were ahead of us in the powerplay and at the halfway stage for both runs and wickets.
Malan gets out and it was like the brakes slammed on.
Thought we bowled well second half, but they made us look very good with bat and ball in the last 5 overs of both innings.
Similar performance to Northants, the difference in outcome primarily down to the quality of the opposition.

Once again I’m thankful Yorkshire are rubbish.
Had no right to get above 200, but they bowled really poorly, after they’d gotten so many of our top order cheaply.
Great work by Barnard, Hassan and Garton.

I might have missed it. But was Moeen not supposed to be our captain in T20?
When did that change happen, did they give any reasoning behind it?

I agree that Davies is overburdened. Looking at England, we saw how much Buttler struggled.
I wonder if the lack of replacements for both keeping and captaining is the issue. The only legitimate captaincy option, in my opinion, would be Barnard. Is his place secure enough?
Kai is the obvious replacement for the gloves but he’s definitely not secure enough.

1 thing I would say, is looking back 5-10 years, T20 bowlers set their own fields, they had their plans, only younger players relied on the captain for that. And that’s about plans set off the field, bowlers knowing where they’re bowling, fielders knowing where they’re supposed to be. You can adapt in the game of course, like we saw Willey do with the bowling changes. But players weaknesses don’t change mid game, you know where you’re supposed to bowl at them.
Now everything goes through the captain.

I don’t think the performance was any different to the Derbyshire win. The opposition was better.
And as many of us said then, good but room for improvement in certain areas. Which against teams in form can cost you.

Biggest concern for me was leadership, and I mean that in a sense wider than just captaincy.
Davies captaincy was poor, Briggs only bowling 2 for example. He seems to not adapt in game very well, and the comparison between him and David Willey as a captain was stark.
Moeen Ali had the chance to show his experience and manage the chase as a senior player should, just as it became clear Mousley was getting frustrated and he needed to take control of the chase from that point. Instead he seemed to shirk all responsibility.
And once again there seemed to be a lack of a plan, when we couldn’t smash a couple of boundaries every over or they were scoring freely.
These are things that against a lesser opponent that you can overcome, but against better teams and in close matches they make the difference. Once again, they’re not insurmountable these are issues that can be fixed if they’re acknowledged.

Can’t quite make my mind up about this team yet. There’s a great deal of promise but also clear room for improvement, as has been mentioned. Can’t help but notice the 4 teams we’ve played have been against the 4 teams below us.
The 2 we’ve won are the 2 at the very bottom of the table.
So I think we’ll learn more when we play Northants, who are obviously unbeaten. But then we play Notts and Yorkshire again, so I wonder if the fixtures work well for us to learn a lot, not play great but still be able to win due to the weaker opponents in the early rounds.

That’s a real shame. Think the move was a very smart one for him.
I always thought with him it would be a matter of confidence combined with circumstances.
Give him a flattish deck, Div 2 bowlers or bowlers just off their game, and a bit of confidence or where he’s not playing for his place, he can look really good. And he’s got that at Kent.
But against top opposition, bowler friendly conditions or when he’s questioning himself or his place in the team is under threat, it doesn’t look great, as we saw the last year or 2.

Thank god Yorkshire are rubbish.
Up there with one of the worst batting collapses I’ve seen from such a strong position.

Some iffy captaincy up until the collapse, some odd field settings and bowling changes.

Hopefully we don’t do a Yorkshire, but Latham and Davies look to be handling this comfortably.

Mousley and Hassan are massive returns.
Mousley’s bowling is really reliable in this format, aggressive with the bat and he’s an excellent fielder.
I’d go with:
Davies
Ali
Hain
Latham
Barnard
Mousley
Smith
Garton
Ali
Briggs
Miles

7 bowling options (if Garton bowls), batting ability down to 9.

Can’t say I’m overly surprised by those stats.
The one glaring issue for the Bears though is what they refer to as “execution” in the article, with both bat and ball.

Right now, we might score 90 or 250. But I’m not sure we could protect either with our current bowling and fielding.

What I would say with the 1’s and 2’s thing, is whilst they’re not match winning, it is a way to create more match winning boundaries. We all know that rotating the strike off good balls can mess with bowlers plans, captains change the field, and so more boundary opportunities arise from bad balls due to disrupted rhythm or new gaps.

For me, and it’s not ideal but, Latham can play that Joe Root or Williamson in T20. Manipulate, take the runs on offer, find the gaps etc, before you know it he’s 30 off 20 and then has the chance to accelerate, whilst others are more attacking around him. The issue is, Hain tends to take 10-15 balls to get going and those 2 together could get stuck for 4 or 5 overs.

Captaincy and tactics is an issue. I thought Moeen was there for that, but seems Davies is still running the show. They need to spend a couple of days deciding how they want to play or how they should play based on the players at their disposal, and create plans based on that. Clarity allows players to execute much easier because they know what they’re supposed to be doing. We’re seeing it currently, our players who are mentally the strongest in terms of knowing their games, their cricket IQ, their thought process when batting or bowling, the likes of Hain, Barnard, and Briggs, they’re doing the best right now.

For me the 2 games have just left me with a lot of questions.
-Why Sylvester over Simmons? If Derby are willing to let him trial and go out on loan, that suggests something. Plus he looks unfit. Why not give our own contracted player a go?
-What’s the plan, both batting and bowling? I know T20 can look like slogging but there is more to it, players have different roles, manipulate fields etc. Same with the bowling, who are the openers, are we relying on spin in the middle overs, who’s the death bowlers?
-What are our fielding and bowling tactics? It just seems to be fling to down the same way to every batsman and then change the field to chase the ball.

I appreciate there are a lot of key players, who were supposed to play a big role, unavailable for various reasons. But that doesn’t excuse some of what’s occurred so far. The other side might be more talented or execute better on the night, but there’s no excuse for a lack of planning and preparedness on the pitch, which seems to be the case currently. Luckily that can be remedied, but it requires leadership to acknowledge it first.

Considering Woakes was at 9, we had a lot of batting strength, going 160 odd for 2 to 227 all out is pretty poor.

Yates’ form is starting to become a bit of a concern.

He’s in the squad, but will he play? We know how funny England can get. Probably works in our favour England are batting today so no bowler can be injured and England request Woakes is wrapped in cotton wool.
I think he will play but there’ll be a limit on the number of overs he can bowl.

Interestingly I saw last week Woakes went and did some work with Pop Welch. I still find it bizarre the club let him leave, best bowling coach I can remember in a very long time.

Not to be overly pessimistic, but do we think Moeen plays the first game? His final game in the IPL is the 25th. First Bears game is the 30th.
Wouldn’t be the first time we’ve seen a player need a “break” following arrival from another franchise tournament.
And as much as I love him as a player, I don’t get the feeling from him that he’s so passionate about the club that he’ll play no matter what.