Is Mousley injured? He has only bowled one over so far in this innings. We need to get Vince and Dawson out soon or else we'll be chasing a big total.

Wicket for Mousley, getting rid of Middleton. I'm hoping we can bowl them out for around 230, leaving us 275 to chase.

I thought we did well to bowl them out for under 300, the crucial wicket for me was Miles getting Ben Brown out as he & Dawson looked to be taking them to a big total. Fair play to Barnard as well, 3 wickets is a good return for a part-time bowler. Disappointed to lose two wickets at the end, still we have a strong middle order who can take us past their total tomorrow.

KingofSpain wrote:

Its a shame about Rae. I thought he did well as cover and could be an option for the One Day Cup.
Let's see how Norwell holds up. What happened to Jamal? Another overseas recruit that hasn't worked out.
I would think from the squad that Benjamin, Booth and Miles miss out and it is between Mousley and Briggs for the remaining spot.

Ha- I see what you did there, nice Lemonheads reference! I am wondering if Yates is fit then could they possibly have Davies keep wicket and leave Burgess out? Also is it too risky to play both Norwell & Woakes given their lack of game time?

Possible team: Yates, Davies, Rhodes, Hain, Barnard, Mousley, Bethell, Woakes, Briggs, OHD, Miles.

Last time out at Lancs our team was: Yates, Davies, Rhodes, Mousley, Barnard, Bethell, Burgess, Rae, OHD, Hassan & Lintott.

Hain will be back at 4, so if Yates is fit to play who drops out of the first 7? Woakes will come in for Rae, Briggs for Lintott, and one of Booth/Miles/Norwell for Hassan.

Squad:

Ed Barnard
Chris Benjamin
Jacob Bethell
Michael Booth
Danny Briggs
Michael Burgess (wk)
Alex Davies (c)
Sam Hain
Olly Hannon-Dalby
Craig Miles
Dan Mousley
Liam Norwell
Will Rhodes
Chris Woakes
Rob Yates

Wow what an innings from Bethell! He smashed the Northants bowlers all over the park - superb!

So Barnard smashes 48 off 29 balls, something we all knew he was capable of doing. Yet, for some reason, he doesn't get selected until match 7 despite being in every squad since the first match. Also, if Yates was available for this game, would Barnard have been left out again for Benjamin?

Hopefully Liam will be back fairly soon, starting off in the T20's? A pace attack of Woakes, Gleeson & Norwell looks pretty tasty to me.

Nowadays in T20, I believe the strike rate is considered more of a benchmark than the average. I would agree that after 4 or 5, an average doesn't really count for much.

At the moment, Sam Hain is currently 2nd in the averages of the Vitality Blast with an average of 55 from 5 innings (165 runs). However, his strike rate is fairly low at 120.44. Not sure what an acceptable average for a batsman should be in T20, but i think as far as strike rate is concerned 150.00 would be considered the benchmark.

Well, we made heavy weather of that. Mousley batted well but played & missed about half-a-dozen reverse shots, while Hain batted steadily but strangely subdued. Benjamin only faced 5 balls but looked completely out-of-sorts, i really can't understand why they are continuing to select him ahead of Barnard or Burgess. We are 2nd in the table now, Northants & Worcestershire up next.

133-7, really good bowling effort particularly from Gleeson, Briggs & Mousley.

Wow! Gleeson's on fire!

Who's idea was it to hold the World Cup in the Caribbean at the start of the rainy season? Great bit of planning that!

A great win for us yesterday, sits us 4th in the table now. A win tomorrow at Derbyshire could potentially put us in 2nd spot.

The 3 spinners were excellent, and i'm a little surprised that Mousley didn't get the man of the match award for his all-round game. He came on to bowl just after Hassan & Woakes had been smashed round the park, and he stopped the flow immediately, conceding just 5 runs in his first over to put the brake on. He also came out to bat at a difficult time when Davies & Yates had gone cheaply, and his knock of 41 (together with Hain) gave the innings some impetus just when we needed it.

For tomorrow's game, Barnard now surely has to come in for Benjamin, and i would bring in Garton for Hassan Ali. Woakes is extremely rusty of course, but we have to stick with him until he gets his full fitness back. Hopefully Gleeson will be ok to play back-to-back matches this week, he bowled superbly last night.

I don't like it when either coaches or players start making excuses, i always feel it's to cover for their own inadequacies. The reason we lost the last two games is because we conceded too many runs in both matches, 370 in 40 overs going at just over 9 runs per over. The reference to Gleeson is just another excuse, because Jamal came into the side for him and bowled one shocking over. But to cover the cracks the excuse is 'we had to rest Gleeson' - justifying Jamal's selection. And why rest Gleeson anyway - can't he manage to bowl 8 overs in two days?

Yes you're probably right, Jacks is more likely to be left out next game.

England could be out of the World Cup this time next week if we don't pip Scotland on run rate. For the next two matches we need to drop old timers Bairstow, Ali, Jordan & Wood, and bring in Duckett, Curran, Hartley & Topley.

I think the team for the next game should be: Salt, Buttler, Duckett, Brook, Livingstone, Jacks, Curran, Hartley, Archer, Rashid & Topley.

We're down to 5th in the table now, and our next two fixtures are against the two teams directly above us - Yorkshire & Derbyshire.

Against Yorkshire on Friday i would go with: Davies, Yates, Barnard, Hain, Bethell, Burgess, Garton, Briggs, Mles, Lintott & Gleeson.

Why was Jamal selected today? Yesterday on the website Miles was in the 13 man squad for the game against Lancs (no Jamal) so why didn't he get the nod today? It must give a player so much confidence to know someone who wasn't in the squad the day before gets picked ahead of you the following day. And then bowls only one over for 25 runs!

Hopefully Burgess will be selected to bat at 6 in the next match.