Bald_Reynard wrote:

Here we go again! Already 3 down, against the bottom team in the Group, who have only won 1 game! Once again, Yates fails to capitalise. And once again, Davies fails as an opener. When will Management learn the lessons of this campaign?!

To be fair, I don’t think there was much Davies could have done about that.

Value for money is something else entirely and he probably isn't offering that (without knowing the figures) but at the very least he went a long way towards winning us that first game on his own (with a good contribution from Hain as well)

I'm not convinced about Rhodes as a T20 batsman, his record is pretty poor (averaging less than 15 from 56 matches). He could be a useful bowling option though.

Stirling definitely is better than Pollock, Pollock only has 99 runs from 9 innings with a best of 28 so far this season!

Squad:

Carlos Brathwaite (C)
Chris Benjamin
Jacob Bethell
Danny Briggs
Henry Brookes
Alex Davies (WK)
Sam Hain
Adam Hose
Jake Lintott
Dan Mousley
Craig Miles
Will Rhodes
Olly Stone
Rob Yates

Stirling misses out due to Ireland commitments.

I think some are being a bit harsh on some of our team. I don't think we'd have won 7 out of 11 games with too many passengers. Admittedly on the batting front we have sometimes relied on Hain and Hose but there have been decent contributions from others as well (we have 5 batsmen with over 200 runs). We are worryingly inconsistent though, when it comes to the knockout stages all it takes is one of those shocking performances and we're out.

In terms of bowling, Miles started well (he's our second leading wicket taker) but has really tailed off recently which is a worry. Brathwaite has also been inconsistent (and was pretty poor last night) but I think he's a good leader.

For me, I'd bring in Mousley for Yates, and Bethell will probably come back in for Stirling (who apparently has Ireland commitments). That will give us a lot more bowling options. I don't like it when we're forced to use only five bowlers.

Well, that was entertaining!!

He certainly made the most of his chance! Could be a selection headache for the next match

According to Cricinfo Moeen is now "widely expected to join Warwickshire along with Lancashire's Saqib Mahmood"

This innings from Wells is one of the luckiest I can recall.

Batsmen running on the protected area (I think it was Brookes).

Fair play to Davies, this is a crucial innings under a lot of pressure, fighting for his place, against his former club, match in the balance

I'm sure the pitch wasn't the main cause today, but does anyone know why we're using the same pitch for every game? I know it's a hybrid but it seems to be getting harder to score each time.

For the next game I'd move Bethell down the order, opening isn't working for him.

This is completely brainless

When we're bad, we're REALLY bad

Given injuries and lack of form for our bowlers, I'm not sure we're in a position where we can celebrate the departure of our third highest wicket taker and third lowest averaging bowler.

I’m not too concerned about Stirling just yet. His job in the team is clearly to get us the fastest start possible and as a result he’s going to fail some of the time. Aside from his hundred, the game against Notts was an 8 over thrash and we had to attack from ball one against Worcestershire too. I’m sure he’ll come good again and when he does he’s a match winner on his own.

Durham bowled 17 wides! Never seen anything like it

I'm not very impressed with the Durham commentary. They made out that Benjamin had cheated by stopping the ball when touching the rope, but you could clearly see on the stream that it was fine.

Continuing on from the other thread, the game I went to was actually against the Dodgers, and the Rockies won!

I went to my first baseball game since moving to the US in Denver a month or two ago. Reminded me quite a lot of cricket in the way that the game is watched and the overall atmosphere.