FarmerPalmer wrote:

Crowd was affected by several things. One it was extremely cold, two there are two games this weekend and three possibly it being Eid may have put some Asians off.
Thought the bowlers got caned early on and the Malan Wharton partnership was looking very dangerous. However the bowlers stuck at it and when Lintott repositioned Hassan and had Wharton caught next ball the whole game changed. Last five overs they scored 25 with malan facing very few balls and scoring very few. Great turnaround.
I thought when the bears batted yorkshires fielding was pretty abject and the spinners were conversely very ineffective.
Bit squeaky at the end but got there. Good game despite the weather

yeah, I thought our powerplay bowling flattered them a bit, some rank stuff for easy boundaries, and i thought Lintott struggled to land one on the mark all night and bowled some rank stuff, really seemed to struggle with his lines in particular, got his 2nd wicket off an absolute stinker. it felt like his first wicket was just about the only ball he landed all night

fortunately Briggs was class as ever and Moeen looked like he'd be a wicket threat

I said to my dad when Bess came in at 6, unless he has drastically improved he was at least one place higher than I'd like were I a Yorkie, and I'm not sure he'd even be as high as 8 in our lineup last night.

LeicesterExile wrote:

Shame Garton didn't get a 2nd over early on after a pretty good opener.

I was scratching my head, especially as it seems Garton needs some confidence (and needs to see some confidence from his captain) in his bowling, he was in a groove, new ball, overcast, and he didn't get another over. good lord that must have felt like a kick in the balls to him?

UrsaMinor wrote:

Brookes was coming through at the same time as Bethell and Mousley. If you need to ration salaries, you could understand focusing on the latter pair. Only then do you find that they'll hardly ever play for you because England/IPL/Undead keep pinching them. Perhaps we shouldn't be developing the best players?!

yeah, like i said I can understand why we didn't give him more chances. like I also said, we could have kept him instead of taking on Garton's salary.

Tayls79 wrote:

Got to say never paid so much interest to 2nd XI games as these last couple as a rangefinder for the first team. Of today's I think Kai Smith was probably the most useful contribution. Though he came in at five that's the sort if impetus we need from seven in the first team and a good indicator they want him to take the gloves - which is needed to balance the side.

Not sure how much Garton took from it but his figures seem OK and must help as I think management want him back in the firsts. Yates obviously had the most success today but I think it slightly muddies the water. Having a firing Yates means he can only really replace Latham and that doesn't add much firepower to our side.

I was going to post on a dedicated thread but this is as good a place as any:

looking at the development of Ethan Brookes in all formats, does anyone not regret letting him go and paying (what I imagine to be) decent money for GG to be a one-format flop?

I have been following Ethan at Worcs, nearly won the CC game against Essex with an explosive rescue job with the bat smashing boundaries all over the place, gets wickets or bowls tidy spells in white ball as a really good 4th seam option with his varieties, superb fielder who takes worldy catches.......

and then we have George Garton. lol.

i will admit i can understand entirely why he left and I can kind of understand why we didn't give him more chances, but that kind of 'sliding doors' moment where his and Garton's careers crossed, his went upwards, and GG... well we have all seen the results. Alanis Morissette wrote something about it, once...

If we take him its near-guaranteed he will suddenly be a must-have accessory for the england white ball setup and if he is lucky enough, they can get him studying Woakes's drinks-carrying techniques for a couple of years. we'll never see him

BristolBear wrote:

Can’t say I’m overly surprised by those stats.
The one glaring issue for the Bears though is what they refer to as “execution” in the article, with both bat and ball.

Right now, we might score 90 or 250. But I’m not sure we could protect either with our current bowling and fielding.

> What I would say with the 1’s and 2’s thing, is whilst they’re not match winning, it is a way to create more match winning boundaries. We all know that rotating the strike off good balls can mess with bowlers plans, captains change the field, and so more boundary opportunities arise from bad balls due to disrupted rhythm or new gaps.

yes absolutely, what the stats don't track is the way that 1's and 2's at the very least, don't allow too much pressure to build on the batsman. I'm not sure how much pressure they actually put on the bowler, I think that really depends on the score being chased, I mean an over of 3 2s and 2 singles is great if you're chasing 170 but 3 overs like that puts a lot of pressure on you if chasing 220.

I'd like more stats on the impact of dot balls and their relationship to wickets, I feel as though anecdotally their is very strong relationship between consecutive dot balls, or a significant number within an over, and wickets, so again, the impact of singles and 2s may not show in the overall stats but in the context of the game at least they weren't dot balls

A vast amount of statistical evidence and analysis has shown that scoring 1s and 2s absolutely doesn't do any good in winning T20 games, I'm afraid, you only effectively 'move the score on' with 1s and 2s if you are chasing or happy with a sub-par score.

https://www.espncricinfo.com/story/how-many-boundaries-should-a-t20-team-attempt-in-an-innings-mmre-than-you-might-think-1240901

Yates bowling before lunch? dear lord.

nice to see Benjamin on the scorecard in this round of matches with 94NO for Kent amidst a first innings collapse

I briefly tuned in to the Kent game in the previous round and the commentators were fairly complementary about his keeping too, did a neat job standing up to the seamers, so they said.

good luck to him!

UrsaMinor wrote:

I'm still not convinced that Stokes and McCullum are geniuses in selection but one area where they seem to be exceptional is in instilling self belief in the players they choose. That, clearly, goes a long way.

I think their 50% w/l record in the last 12 months is a much better indicator of their likely long term success rate than the initial gaudy stats of the first 12-18 months would suggest, I personally think there is quite a strong element of the Kings New Clothes to 'B**ball' and especially Stokes as a cricketer.

but as you say, they definitely get at least one thing very right and indeed it does go a long way.

BristolBear wrote:

Don’t disagree on Briggs being superb for T20. But by the 2026 season he’ll be 35. More and more we only play him in T20. That experience and achievement comes with a price tag. As I understand his family situation he doesn’t really want to travel much for franchise cricket. So would be against a T20 only deal, wants all formats.
Can you justify paying someone that much, when you could get an all format decent red ball spinner, plus have Bethell, Yates and Mousley for T20 spinners too. And we could have Moeen and Lintott as well still.
It’s a balance.

absolutely we aren't at all short of spin options

GerryShedd wrote:

There may be a bit of a Will Rhodes type dilemma in relation to Danny Briggs because my recollection is that he came to Warwickshire specifically because he wanted to play more red ball cricket. But the reality is that he hasn't delivered in red ball. So if part of his negotiation on a new contract is that he still wants a guarantee of red ball selection, that might be a problem.
I would imagine that counties generally will be looking at the spreadsheet and seeing who might be available soon.

wow, I didn't recall that.

on a related note, before Briggs came here I always compared his T20 figures to Jeetan's and assumed that, as his strike rate was much better than Jeets, he was a more attacking, toss it up, bigger spinner of the ball, who would if anything be better as a wicket-taking CC bowler. I literally never noted his CC averages.

Strange how someone so much better than Jeets at taking T20 wickets would be so much worse at taking CC wickets. I used to think it must be because he turned it more, but having seen him, i think he actually turns it less and gives it much less of a rip than Jeets; it seems to me it's just that, in the white ball game, Jeets absolutely hated getting hit for boundaries and bowled more defensively, where Briggs almost seems to relish batsmen having a go at him, if they hit a six 'please, try that again' and then the subtle variety in the next delivery = wicket.

I absolutely love watching Briggs at work but its a major liability that our premier spinner is so mediocre with the red ball

you missed out Barnard who has got oodles of white ball centuries over the last 2 years

BristolBear wrote:

Probably time to move on from Rushworth, Briggs, and Miles.

move Briggs on after his best ever T20 season for number of wickets taken, where he was like 2nd in the competition? i think that unlikely, as much as his red ball game is poor (that isn't the management team's priority, clearly)

i wouldn't get rid of the all time leading domestic T20 wicket taker when seemingly at the top of his game, myself

The comparison that comes to mind with Benjamin is Tom Banton.

When he first hit the scene he had two great years, like Benjamin he played quite a lot of ‘innovative’ type shots, the ramps and scoops and stuff

Then he had 3 absolutely terrible years, couldn’t buy a run IIRC.

But last year he came back to form and did very well again. So I do think it’s possible after a period of bad form/ being found out that Benjamin could return to form, but for his career a move was probably the best thing. Time will tell but I’ll be looking out for his scores

Sure, but in my opinion he wasn’t a better option than either Yates who has a better t20 record, or Barnard, who was in incredible white ball form

Rhodes was not the next cab off the rank even if they did drop Benjamin, which I agree they should have done.

You mention Burgess which is a really good point and I’d have him in the t20 team ahead of Rhodes, too.

Barnard deserved a shot in the t20 lineup before Rhodes did in any case, and Yates didn’t play much this year and has a better record than Rhodes, so it’s something of a moot point. I think there is very little case to be made that Rhodes was one of our 6 best t20 batsmen.

its a shame as I personally think he definitely has something and with the right coaching/support I still think he has a career in the game. he should have been dropped for his own good last season as his demeanour visibly got worse with each passing failure. His best performances had some shotmaking of real innovative aplomb.
i don't think his failure to develop and subsequent nosedive in form speaks too highly of the coaching setup.

I can entirely understand his moving to get T20 opportunities, for what its worth, as there is so much money to be made and careers are short. I think he may be a bit optimistic, though, and doubt he will be doing the Franchise circuit, unless his white ball game has significantly improved.

GerryShedd wrote:

Some fair points there. You don't mention, however, that in his last T20 season (2021), Will ,Rhodes easily topped the T20 bowling averages with 14 wickets at 11.71.

good point!

And as for batting, Chris Benjamin's figures this year of 114 runs at an average of 11.40 and a strike rate of 117.52 don't compare too well with those 2021 figures for Rhodes (192 runs at 19.84, strike rate 134.37), modest though Rhodes' figures were.

ok but its hardly fair to compare CB's worst season with Rhodes's best, lets compare Rhodes with compare Benjamin's best season, 2022, 354 runs average 39 strike rate 163 absolutely annihilates Rhodes's best season