ExiledBrummie wrote:

How long do we have Webster for? Hope whatever that he's back in 2026.

Indeed, and I am sure someone has probably answered this already but it would really be great if he was around for the T20 in Sept, his game looks ideal for the format

I'm in the minority, I actually like Finals Day being somewhat later as I hate being in the sun all day and actually quite like watching cricket in cool weather.

It seems to produce relatively low-scoring games, too (again I am probably in the minority, I really enjoy nip and tuck T20 where the bowlers have a fair chance and batters need to think and work hard for their runs)

Tayls79 wrote:

In cricketing terms, it probably is, hence my caveat that people can judge it how they like, but I do like the link to statistical analysis - a bit nerdy on this as is part of my job. Do agree with Highveldt that baseball takes it to the next level while the current Bazball age (in the UK) does seem to reduce the emphasis on data and replacing it with 'vibes' which is far more fun to discuss.

I find the blithe arrogance of the England setup where they feel their taps nose, I know what I am seeing intuitive genius overrides statistics to be grating and highly annoying.

Whilst I agree the club and ECB are if anything almost deliberately underselling the 4 day game, and quite probably for the reasons given, I think the expectations of people regarding kids turning up to a days County cricket are rather unrealistic, myself. There seems to be a perception we'd be teeming with thousands if only there was a marketing campaign. Personally I think there is a lot of living in the past, here.

oh and speaking of development, nice to see Ethan Brookes' stats for the year so far, 323 runs (10 more than Barnard and Mousley) at SR155 (compared to Mousley SR146 and Barnard SR161), he is basically their joint top scorer along with Hose and scoring at a significantly better lick than Hose.

Tayls79 wrote:

Both the last two posts are the point of this competition: Development. Agree Kai needs to take the gloves and this is a good opportunity to practice and for Davies to rest from behind the stumps (indeed, if he plays at all). Barnard has also developed in this competition, his run with the bat in 2023 changed things for him massively in his status at the club.

Indeed, the Hundred's loss is our gain

If Barnard isn't drafted for the Hundred its an indictment of the weird biases that have afflicted those teams from the start. Players get picked much more for headlines (what has Rocky Flintoff's productivity been like this year in T20? however it makes a great headline that he is in his dad's team) and on reputation than productivity.

Barnard being our second-top scorer having come in at numbers 5 or 6 and at SR165ish is one of the better stats for batters in the T20 comp this year. He just isn't 'sexy' enough reputationally and I suspect the significant increase in his SR has passed complacent so-called 'experts' by entirely.

Still, it suits our purposes very nicely. It seems to me his overall batting game was really allowed to develop playing in the top order for the last couple of years in the 50 overs, he got loads of time at the crease.

Reabank wrote:

Certainly never got much love on this forum nor, in recent years, from Warwickshire management. His record for us wasn't bad 105 wickets at 32.4. Taking 47 wickets at 21 in our county championship winning season.

fair enough his stats in both cases are better than I would have thought, thanks

and yes I will certainly always remember the way he'd chase balls down and hurl himself around as a boundary-rider, very athletic and committed fielder for a big fast bowler

FWIW i believe avg score at New Road is a shade over 170

has anyone else noticed how often Briggs gets wickets with the delivery immediately after he has been hit for a boundary, often with the batsmen trying to repeat the same shot? batsmen after all these years and wickets still don't seem to be able to work out that even if they think he's feeding them the same delivery again, he probably isn't!

sdobbs wrote:

Good to see Garton picking up POTM. Two good back to back performances. He seems to be a confidence player so hopefully this run can continue. Mentioned a potential interest in red ball in the Sussex game radio interview, definitely something to consider.....

indeed, his match-winning/changing 'cameos' with the bat are starting to become something of a regular occurrence, i think that is now 4 times this season he has really played an impactful innings at the end. it was really affecting our flexibility/options when one of our seamers was only bowling 1 over, albeit at least a couple of times he bowled really good opening overs only to not get another nod from Davies, so having him bowl 2-3 good ones changes the dynamic significantly.

i like the fact that Mousley in particular is playing more aggressively. when he first came into the team at 5/6 his SR was excellent but since we played him at 3 it really seemed to regress and he seemed to be caught between two stools, trying to play long innings but often getting stuck at the crease and chewing up deliveries that Hain could have faced and consistently going at around SR130 over quite a few deliveries.

Devon_Bear wrote:
. Why they think he's better off sitting in the pavilion kicking his heels for 5 days instead of playing for his county side i do not know.

What, you don't think he will grow as a cricketer and, indeed, as a man, just having the chance to be around the stardust-sprinkled charisma, leadership and tactical nous of England's Talismanic Captain, Ben Stokes?

Andy wrote:

It's the lack of front arm that gets me, how is he generating so much pace from that. He's utterly rapid.

yeah exactly there really doesn't seem to be much bodily effort going into it (compared to say Garton who has a huge gather and seems to put a massive stress through his back and shoulders), like i say my best guess is he's a big man travelling through the crease very quickly and loses minimum possible speed from his quick run-up through his delivery stride, it seems very efficient in that way and like I say very similar to Hassan

its fascinating, watching bowlers, how many different actions there are, how everyone exploits their bodily mechanics in different idiosyncratic ways. you could put a blacked-out shadow of Hassan Ali bowling projected against a wall and I'd know it immediately.

It was the first time I have really paid attention to Gleeson and I found it fascinating. For such a big man if you watch him go through the crease he resembles a Hassan Ali type much more than say a Flintoff, there's no big leap and gather, he really has a beautiful nimble, light-footed skip through the crease so his quite fast run-up hardly loses any pace.

Garton's yorker to Buttler, though, eh? what a ball BTW

as well as Mousley timed the ball i thought Wood's poor bowling cost them the game, Mouse got most of his early boundaries off rank half volleys on leg stump and one through the off side and IIRC Latham and Davies also benefitted from him giving too much width through the off side to that short boundary, their boundaries were gimme balls pretty much with that boundary width.

considering how their spinners often manage to restrict us when we play them away from home (and we often aren't the best at capitalising on spin in the middle overs) I thought we did really well to take Green down for 10s Wells for 8s and Hartley for I think 7s, also we targeted and gave their number 3 seamer the treatment in his first over which was smart cricket.

the players clearly felt it was a 200+ par pitch hence how hard they went and, as said above, the only way to prevent getting hammered on that pitch was to take wickets consistently.

If I were a Lancs fan I'd have been very unhappy with Jennings's flick to the one fielder out on that boundary and I thought Turner's shot off i think Briggs's second ball was also a poor decision.

i don't usually say this but i felt they lost it at least as much as we won it, we got far too many boundaries early that we didn't have to really work for.

Tayls79 wrote:

Highest T20 strike rate of any of our top order with the exception of Bethell (who has a smaller sample size). It way well be true to say he isn't performing right now, however. Overall point still holds though, if Mo ain't there we still need a fast scoring batsman.

LeicesterExile wrote:

Post #25 - not sure I understand describing Moeen as an explosive batsman. Since he returned he has done very little to even justify his place and, to me, gives the impression of just turning up for a final pay cheque.
Latham, to me, has been a big disappointment and hardly justifies being selected ahead of Yates.

whilst his career SR isn't that good it really struck my eye that Barnard's has been just over 160 this year, what a fantastic all round cricketer he is

Solbear wrote:

A decent effort but not quite good enough; interesting and somewhat ironic that the two main contributors with the bat today were deemed unfit for T20 under previous management, just a shame that one was for the opposition.

to be fair to management Rhodes wasn't just 'deemed' unfit, his T20 record for us was mediocre. I've trotted his stats out on here before. Barnard was the far more glaring selection mistake last year, who is a better bowler and IMO a better T20 batsman with much better SR than rhodes

. I guess not many feel the same as me but maybe that separates 'Diehard Fans' to ones who just turn up for T20.

or 'people who still have to go to work', in other words

Devon_Bear wrote:

A disappointing result today, although we gave it a good go in the chase. Ultimately, Mousley's 2 overs for 31 cost us in the end.

A strange looking team selection today, with Yates batting at 6. He's hardly the type of player to come in and smash a few sixes about, is he? We'd be better off with Hassan Ali coming in at 6,

or Davies dropping down the order.

yeah, it seems pretty obvious if Yates is to play in T20 then really he needs to open

but then there would be two very similar openers, both left handed, neither being the quickest scorers.

I know Davies really obviously wants to open but I think his style of batting is clearly better suited to batting in the middle order than Yates

i wonder if the elephant in the room is that our best batsman Hain has never (other than his first season) opened. If you look at James Vince, ever since he established himself as the man at Hants, he opened, and it gave their best batsman the chance to face the maximum number of deliveries. It seems counter-intuitive that our best batsman seems to always either be under pressure to rebuild an innings with wickets down in the power play, or coming in with only 10 overs to go. Considering he almost always takes 10 balls to have a look and get going, if he comes in around 10 overs, he only needs his partner to hog the strike a bit too much and he's coming in to overs 15-20 having barely had time to knock himself in and potentially needing to go at 12/over.

personally it seems to me to have suited him better coming in 2 wickets down in the PP, at least it has given him plenty of time and he has rolled out dozens of big 8-+ innings under those circumstances.

On Mousley- his career SR has dropped as he has gone along it seems to me, and it seems to have coincided with playing him at 3. he seems very much boom or bust and seems to get stuck at the crease playing big shots and missing and allowing too many dots, he doesn't seem adept enough at rotating the strike. i thought he was a better number 5/6 than 3 to be honest.