Think the playing in the group stages only applies to overseas.

The averages make awkward reading for Davies. But could be worse, he could be Chris Benjamin. 11…. At the lowest strike rate of anyone. And not dropped. Mind boggling.

Do we know how bad the Davies injury is?
We know Benjamin is batting poorly but I’d be terrified having to rely on him with the gloves. He’s a very average keeper, he spilled a catch in this match after taking the gloves from Davies.

Reabank wrote:

Some of the criticism is over the top. We have three batters with 2024 cc averages of over 50 (Davis, Burgess and Yates), Barnard averaging 47 and Rhodes 41. Jacob Bethell is emerging as a strong all formats player - Dan Mousley has struggled in the championship but these things happen. And we have a decent crop of batsmen and a spin bowler at U19 level. It's disappointing that in the two games we lost we got into positions to win but I think Davis and Robinson are fine as a captain and coach combination.
Having said that I don't think it's a surprise that we've come up short on the pace bowling as we always looked thin . We haven't had a decent spinner since Jeetan Patel left - in recent seasons no spinner hasn't really mattered but with generally good batting pitches (too good in some cases) spin is more relevant this season. We don't produce good bowlers and don't seem to be prepared to recruit good championship bowlers or at least not enough of them. I also agree that the approach of bringing in emergency overseas players hasn't worked.

We should expect so much more of our county’s coach and captain than “fine”.

Winning is built on performances, performances are built on culture, work ethic, tactics and talent.
You can’t fault their work ethic.
But they’re short in talent compared to the best county sides, Davies & Yates averages have been heading downwards after those ludicrous kookaburra rounds.

The culture is appalling, playing favourites, rewarding failure, clear favouritism to 1 format. And the tactics are poor too, very evidently based on this year. Both in terms of on field decisions, field settings, and off field recruitment and squad management.

I’ve got to assume Benjamin is only in the squad til Moeen is back.
If he plays again it’s truly laughable.
Burgess must be wondering what he’s got to do.

It’s as we’ve said multiple times. Injuries are only unlucky if your squad is built properly.
But if you build a bowling attack around 2 men in their late 30’s coming to the end of their careers, arguably the most injury prone player in the clubs history, Miles is hardly a fitness guarantee, an unproven rookie 22 year old overseas, and an England player who barely plays except to find fitness and form, and our bowling recruits are all white ball only. It’s hard to act surprised when we get injuries and perform poorly because the cupboard is bare.

I look at this squad and I think Barnard, Burgess, Hain and Hannon-Dalby are reliable top quality players.
Too many others are inconsistent, unreliable, too injury prone, unproven, or just not good enough at all.

They clearly had a plan to declare overnight, problem is Hain batted for his average, there was no intent, no cohesive plan, everyone played differently.
So we ended up 60-70 runs light, and they declared anyway.
On a flat, slow pitch, with 3 front line bowlers, surely they’re smart enough to know they need to commit to early to the draw if Somerset look in a good position. But they didn’t. They spent so long pretending they could win, they let themselves lose.

Just a season of sleepwalking. No coherent tactics, awful decision making, weak inept coach, poor tactician as a captain, squad built on injury prone bowlers.

There’s 4 players in the championship who all things considered, can be relied on to deliver, Hain, Burgess, Barnard and OHD. That’s a joke.

If we lose this, it can all be put down to that bizarre hour or 2 when Hain came in, forcing the rate to a near stop. Then Mousley and Barnard feeling like they needed to force the issue and getting out. Making Hain hit the breaks once more.
If he and Rhodes had batted normally for those 15 overs around tea, got at 3 or 4 an over with little risk, the target would have been 470-480.

I agree with going for the win.
Problem is, at every stage this championship season, Davies and Robinson have always made the conservative choice.
And whilst Worcs won, Notts lost, with very low bonus points. If we get a draw, we’d get 15 points. Would stay more than a draw above Worcs, move above Notts. And Robinson will say, a win changes very little, a loss has a huge impact.

I bet we bat on tomorrow. Maybe 10-15 more overs.
104 overs in the day. Think it’s 2 lost for change of innings. 10 overs batting tomorrow gives you a chance of 10 overs with the second new ball, plus makes the run rate that little bit higher.
Robinson and Davies are nothing if not conservative when it comes to these things.

Hain just seems to have no interest in scoring at anything close to a normal rate. More interested in his average.

He and Bethell have scored 52 in this partnership, Bethell is on 35.

Not at all sure what Hain is is playing at. At least Rhodes has shown some intent, Sam has shown none at all.

The draw was always odds on favourite the moment Somerset passed the follow-on target. But can’t understand the tactics here.

Seems fairly obvious why his move to Sussex collapsed.

Just read the official ruling document, tell you what, it’s brutally tough.
Full, very detailed investigation by 2 independent experts proves it was by accident, punished essentially for trusting the ingredients on the bottle, not going on the companies website where they have a separate and different disclaimer, but the same ingredients listed. And that he didn’t ask the club doctors.

Those are big wickets. We saw how Woakes and Booth were able to stick around to score valuable runs.
With them having to start again tomorrow morning and the new ball due soon, hopefully we can really apply the pressure and put ourselves in a strong position.
We kept at it all day and got our rewards late on.

Problem with Booth is that he is raw.
Lots of potential. Bowls some beauties, but rarely seems to be able to maintain for a whole over. Just struggles to keep that pressure up. Patience as a bowler is a skill in itself, being able to bowl multiple maidens, bowling to a plan. Something he’ll hopefully develop because all the ability is there.
Doesn’t help that Woakes at the other end isn’t exactly his usual disciplined self.

Devon_Bear wrote:

What a magnificent innings by Michael Burgess to score 147 batting at number 8. Credit to Woakes and Booth too for backing him up and taking the score past 400.

Problem is he’s not a number 8. I’d love to see him back at 6, I’m pretty sure that’s where he batted when we won championship, or 7.
Too often he gets stranded with 10 & 11, and hits out to try get quick runs at the end, seen it happen a few times over the years.

Devon_Bear wrote:

It's obvious that Burgess is a far better (championship) batter than Mousley or Bethell, he should be coming in at 6.

Think it’s obvious to everyone other than Robinson.
Somehow this week after a great innings he actually went down a place in the order.

It wouldn’t surprise me in the slightest, Robinson basically avoiding having to make a difficult decision later.
We know he prefers not to drop players, he waits for any non-performance based excuse he can find.
Being afraid isn’t a great quality in a coach.

meashambear wrote:

Well played Sam Hain, assisted by Burgess

Backs against the wall, a bit of bastard and fight needed, those 2 would be my pick to battle it out every time.
They’re the 2 that seem to have the bottle for the fight.
Fantastic innings by Hain, similarly for Burgess, even better when you consider he had to spend 2 hot days keeping as well.

I thought Davies looked out of his depth tactically.
As Gerry writes, within the first hour I think it was, Organ edged one through second slip and there wasn’t one. They were about 100-2, in the morning session and you’re already defending. At that stage the match was by no means a forgone conclusion of them declaring. But we had fields that suggested otherwise.

Mousley held out the attack far too long. Miles used as a bouncer machine multiple times, a plan that only had 1 moment of potential which was when he hit Dawson in the helmet. No attempt to use the spinners in an attacking sense at all. More to take up overs, or limit the boundary count. Again this was being done very early on. Briggs was running in knowing he was almost guaranteed to give up a single every ball no matter what he did.
Can’t fault the effort, they kept running in, kept chasing in the field, but tactically looked devoid of ideas and the limited threat of the bowlers made that all the more obvious.

Some of the variable bounce Bethell and Briggs were starting to get, plus some grip, I could see Dawson doing a number on us again.