I get that we’re rebuilding a bit but we really need to start upping the rate

To be fair, you say "the last couple of failures" but didn't we win the group in both of the last two seasons? I know we then lost in the quarter finals but it's still not a bad record, and we can't have won all those games with only one or two players scoring runs (especially given the number of times we racked up 200 or more)

Presumably Moeen should be back soon, and that will strengthen the batting.

The bowling was definitely more of a weakness last season, given the number of times we scored over 200, and we’ve strengthened that considerably during the winter. If the team stays injury free we really should be making finals day as a minimum

Yates had a good season last season didn’t he?

The forecast may have also been a factor, we may have wanted to avoid batting in the rain on Sunday

To be fair lots of people on here were saying that we should drop Briggs and just play Yates, Bethell and Mousley as spinners…

I’m normally a great advocate of the follow on but in this case I think it was a fair call. Still over two days left in the game, and I can see the logic in not wanting to potentially face Harmer batting last on a deteriorating pitch

Yes, while the bowling recruitment has rightfully come under scrutiny in the last couple of seasons, there’s no doubting that the club got this signing spot on.

Their next game is against England on the 22nd. If he’s in their squad for that, will he be available for the Essex game?

I think that the depth of our bowling attack is more of an issue than overseas recruitment to be honest. An overseas is probably only going to be around for half the season in most cases these days anyway. But this is the second or third season in a row where half our bowling attack has been injured at one time. Either we're just incredibly unlucky with injuries, or our physios/training plans aren't working, or we haven't recruited players that can last a whole season. I suspect that it's the latter, especially given the age of our seamers. I do think we've been unlucky with our overseas players as it sounds as though we had someone lined up which then fell through, and the Hassan situation is also not ideal, but we should have had other players that could step in if needed. I also wouldn't write off Jamal just yet, but he needs to start performing in the Essex game.

To be fair I think we have developed that relationship with Hassan, he seems to love it here. And it is bad luck that someone else in Pakistan’s squad got injured, meaning that he got called up to sit on the bench, whichever way you look at it.

The injury to Miles could have cost us 100 runs in their first innings

Another question could be whether OHD, Jamal, Rhodes and Barnard offer adequate seam options without the need for Miles. The advantage of including Briggs is that we’re not asking Yates, Mousley and Bethell to potentially bat for hours at the top of the order and then giving them a heavy workload on the field (especially given Bethell’s injuries last season)

Hain returns - should hopefully put all the rumours to bed.

Ed Barnard
Jacob Bethell
Danny Briggs
Michael Burgess (WK)
Alex Davies (C)
Sam Hain
Olly Hannon-Dalby
Aamir Jamal
Craig Miles
Dan Mousley
Will Rhodes
Rob Yates

I wonder if he’ll be picked up at the next IPL and beyond, given he hasn’t played this time around and is now out of the England squad as well?

Well the good news is that we haven’t lost a game yet. The bad news is that we haven’t won either. Still a pretty solid start to the season, I’d say.

I wouldn’t put it past the ECB to deny him the opportunity to play for us and then expect him to go into the test squad fully firing.

If that was the case then I don’t know why he would have agreed to play as a sub in the last game.

Much more likely that it’s a family issue for Sam.

Given that he's played test cricket recently (in Australia) and made a big impact, I'd definitely say that he's an upgrade on Miles. For one thing, I assume that he's got a lot more pace/bounce than Miles?

BristolBear wrote:

I’m starting to find the Hain situation a bit odd.
I assume him playing in this is to get some match play in after 3 weeks off.
I’ve heard various rumours of why he’s not playing, none substantiatee, but do find it odd he’s been off for so long, but has been around to sub field, play second xi etc.

Maybe whatever the issue is/was meant that he wasn’t able to commit to being available for a full four day game (if he needed to be on call for something, for example) but that still meant that he could be in and around the matchday squad