Let’s hope Lintott, and perhaps the occasional spin of Lamb, Sibley and Yates can do the job here.
It clearly started really turning for Sodhi, all but 2 wickets fell to spin.
Burgess got an absolute jaffer, pitched well outside leg, hit middle and off. Then balls later Lamb got one that did nothing. Hard to score big on a wicket like that, which means that great start, and batting first could be huge.

For Essex, I think it was all mathematical anyway. They needed a full bonus point win, plus both Durham and ourselves to only get 3 or 4 points each.
I can’t see them being awarded the win either. As in last year’s abandoned matches each side received 8 points for a draw plus any bonus points acquired.
In my mind, it’s now a case of matching Durhams points to qualify.

I assumed he’d been signed for the whole summer. Surely you sign him and say if you want to go back to SA during the 50 over comp then fine. But make sure you’re back ready to go for the red ball again in September.

Is this….is this what a top order partnership feels like? It’s been so very long, I can’t remember.

When you watch this, I start to think that our previous tactic of getting 4 down for 50 runs before lunch and hoping 5/6/7 can dig us out might have been misguided.

If one of these 2 could bat the day, and get 140+ that goes a long way to getting the result needed to get into group 1.

Derbyshire, unfortunately, look like they’re not going to put up much of a fight against Essex, However Notts haven’t got off to great start either.

For most of the players playing now that’s definitely true.

But as with all things the experts change their minds every couple of years, and now in the last few years the trend seems far more to be sticking to academy matches, school matches and men’s club cricket. Then slowly introduce them to second team cricket more gradually, when they’re around 16/17/18.
Otherwise it is literally men against boys, which I believe the most recent wisdom says is bad for development.

Anyone know what Mayers bowling is like?
If it’s on a par with Brathwaite then he can be counted as a bowler. If it’s more part time, they might have to drop Yates or Lamb to ensure they have 6 bowling options.

I feel like if they do get any play, with the amount of bowling injuries and absences we have, and the fact this is definitely going to be a draw. It would be better to declare, and let Lintott have a bowl. Potentially get Ethan Brookes back in too. Maybe even see if they’ll be allowed Bethell to come in and bowl.
Because they’ll need a spinner or 2 in the T20 and Chanpionship, so the more practice in match conditions the better. Plus Brookes seems to be the next man in line seam bowling wise.

So this comes down to getting a draw and then the bonus points now.
I think I’m right in saying that a draw and 6 bonus points is enough in basically every scenario.

It’s great if we qualify agreed.
But them winning basically guarantees their qualification. Which means they’ll have less to play for against Durham.
And it’s between 3 teams for 1 place, rather than 4 for 2.

Seeing Derbyshire collapse against Notts is very frustrating. Notts might get the win there, which would be inconvenient.
However, draw this and the next with a few bonus points, and it would be hard to see how we wouldn’t qualify.

I think getting in is key on this pitch. As they found early on, if batsmen het through the first 20 balls, wickets are hard to come by, but get 1 and it’s a very tough pitch to get started on.

We need to do what they did, bowl tight, make them fight for runs, and really bring down the run rate.
It’s fine if they bat for a session, because if they’re still below 100, then a couple of quick wickets really changes things.

Excellent for Briggs.
But in my head that just shows England have no interest in Hain no matter what. Which is bizarre.

Annoying from the middle order.
Anyone can get a duck, anyone can get out early. But Malan, Hain and Rhodes need to go on from 30’s. 30’s are no good. Also, as fantastic as it is to score a century, Yates now needs to learn to kick on, not get out immediately afterwards.

Poor from Hain. He knew the trap, he knew what was coming, but couldn’t resist.
Think the low scoring rate got to him, but you’d expect him to be smarter than that.

Bresnan was definitely a day of game decision. He was stretching off his calf against Notts on Wednesday. But he finished his overs and stayed out on the field.

So it clearly wasn’t a major injury, but a case of seeing if it had recovered enough to let him play 4 days.

Also, I think some gamesmanship goes into choosing squads in situations like this. Pick the strongest squad, make the opposition bring all their players, maybe make them risk players who might be carrying a knock, thinking they’ll be facing a full strength team.

In terms of this match, it was definitely a toss to win and bowl first to get as many bonus points as possible. Not sure anyone is scoring much around the country because of the conditions, and play is definitely going to be limited throughout the 4 days.

They said on the Twitter feed both OHD and Bresnan miss out due to injury. OHD has a foot injury and it’s a calf issue for Bresnan.
With the forecast for days 1,3 & 4, I think it’s very ambitious to think anything other than a draw will be the outcome here.
So a big push for bonus points will be key. Get as far ahead of Essex as possible. Hope Derbyshire put up a fight against Notts, and that it gets curtailed by the weather too.

Best of luck to him. He never particularly got on a run of form at any point; and seems a good decision for everyone.

It does suggest though with Briggs and Lintott in the hundred, that the likes of Bethell will get lots of opportunity in the RLODC, and even use it to give Lamb and Mousley a chance to improve their spin bowling in matches.

Who knows how this is going to play out. Doubt they’ve done much, if any, red ball practice since their last match.

The interesting choice will be with Sibley available, do they go to 7 batsmen, or stick with Burgess at 6 and take the extra bowler.

Can also assume Stokes will be available which makes things slightly more complicated. But a good win in this, and other results going their way could see the club practically qualified to the top group with a game to spare.

Was at the match today. That all came from poor bowling. It doesn’t excuse the batting, but apparently today was the 5th time that pitch has been used and it really showed.
They should never have scored more than 150. But poor bowling to Duckett and Hales, and a poor last over was the killer.
If you look at both innings the amount of players out through miss-hits, leading edges etc was really obvious. The ball just wasn’t coming on. You can go about chasing 7.5 an over very differently to 9 an over. The fact that even when they just tried to rebuild they were still struggling shows how tough it was to bat out there. Not 63 all out tough, but not 180 off 20 either.