ITE7376
Member
Andy wrote:
He's a noted a t20 player though, i dont know whats gone on with him here however...
from some of the questions being asked i have to wonder how much people are following the wider game beyond our own team. also i have to question the selective memories that can totally ignore good performances from a mere season ago.
meashambear wrote:
The shot selection in our 5 games so far is shocking. Worst Bears T20 team I can remember and that is saying something.
to hear you talk you'd think we haven't made quarter finals near habitually for the last 8 years or so
the years we are this bad- and it has happened- are few and far between and we've very rarely seen it in the last 10 years. its been a long time since the Heath Streak team were getting thraped by Glamorgan for fun
meashambear wrote:
Got to ask serious questions about the people who signed off on Thompson. What have the coaches seen in him?
they have seen a pretty good career record. his career strike rate is something like 15. he has a good track record of death bowling including defending 5 in the final over of a knockout game.
we are bowling him in the power play which historically is his absolute weakest suit. middle overs and death he is normally good/pretty good.
he's on poor form, and partially being used as a round peg for a square hole (PP bowling). some of this comes down to using a proven player in the context he is least proven. That's a management/captaincy issue as well as an unfortunate confluence of poor form
ExiledBrummie wrote:
I reckon we have the least T20 specialists of anyone in the comp. Gleeson and who else? This smacks of really poor recruitment and management.
Tariq is the definition of the T20 specialist
In past years I've seen countless posts moaning about us having too many t20-only mercenaries!
Mikkyk wrote:
Poor match all round for Barnard - I'm unconvinced by him as a T20 player
I think thats a bit unfair, he got 350-odd runs at SR 165 last year which was a fantastic return on both levels. lets not let current form blind us, I mean to watch Davies right now you'd never think he was top scorer for us and one of the 3 or 4 highest scoring openers in the competition last year scoring at a very good rate.
Not to mention Barnard was part of a very successful Pears team that won the competition and got to a second consecutive finals day!
oh FFS Hain injured?
He always gets insane runs at TB, too, his T20 average there is well over 100 IIRC
The_Lickey_Banker wrote:
Kai Smith, 68 from 35 balls, opening today. I really hope Westwood takes notice and gives him a chance up the order on Friday, either opening, or 3/4.
I think Zen's quick blast the other day will have cemented his place for a game or two and if you are going to pick Yates in T20, IMO, he has to be opening and given chance to take advantage of the fielding restrictions, his SR outside the powerplay isn't historically great IIRC. His strike rate this year has been significantly above career average and he's done a decent job even if it was largely by way of a powerplay cameo.
Also I strongly suspect they want him opening so they can have a left-right opening partnership. i think there is a stat somewhere that suggests its statistically beneficial.
Andy wrote:
Just looked back, indeed he opened for 8 games in 2022 scoring 81 runs with a S/R of 106.
Other things I noticed:
Adam Hose was our highest runscorer that year, by a distance.
Paul Stirling played for us, so did Carlos Brathwaite.
Alex Davies sometimes opened, other times batted 5.
We used just 14 different players across 15 games that year.
> Adam Hose was our highest runscorer that year, by a distance.
as i recall that was Hains worst year for us both in aggregate runs and strike
> Alex Davies sometimes opened, other times batted 5.
he hit an excellent 40 off 19 odd when we chased well over 200 at Northants, may have been our highest successful chase at the time, certainly away from home. again i've banged this drum already but i think he'd be better playing spin in the middle overs than Hain is /Webster seems to be (although IIRC Webster scored at an ok rate yesterday against the spin, we scored at 8 an over which isn't that bad for us vs spin, we did let Harrison bowl 9 dot balls out of his 24 though which underlines that we can get clogged at the crease against spin)
Mikkyk wrote:
ITE7376 wrote:
Andy wrote:
Yeah I agree, they should both definitely play if/when available. Can't recall either ever having opened at 1st team level though so that might not be the spot.
Bethell had that brief period opening for us in his first season in the T20 when he was like 18/19, an experiment that lasted maybe 1/3 that season and never really came off
Yep, I was going to mention that. Whilst it didn't come off those were his first, first XI games and he's clearly developed a lot since then. I think it's worth giving him another go there if/when he's available.
oh, definitely worth a thought
my one caveat there though is he is by far our most destructive player of spin and if available the only player we have who can totally smash the spinners around and just bully them over the leg side boundary. As such, myself, I'd save him to come in when we know spin is being bowled as his is so much better than anyone else we have at really taking the spinners down for 20+ an over
Andy wrote:
Yeah I agree, they should both definitely play if/when available. Can't recall either ever having opened at 1st team level though so that might not be the spot.
Bethell had that brief period opening for us in his first season in the T20 when he was like 18/19, an experiment that lasted maybe 1/3 that season and never really came off
Andy wrote:
Yeah agree ive wanted Hain opening in this format for years, gotta get yer best bat in early.
as many years as he's played and not been opener (albeit as I recall, his first year in the T20 lineup he opened for at least half the season and maybe more) you have to assume either he or the management or both are simply averse to the idea.
I've banged on about it at length on here before and won't bore everyone again but i think it suits his skillset more than coming in at 4 does, but that ship sailed a long time ago, it seems.
if it was that 'surely' I'd have expected Mousley to have opened before at some point in his now 5-year career in the first team, during which time we have gone through about 9 opening partnerships none of which included him. last year when a spot opened up they used Barnard as an opener ahead of/instead of Mousley so i don't think its that cut & dried in their minds
Mikkyk wrote:
I think that should/could be the last we see of OHD in this format. He's so hittable, for example any shorter change up balls look so easy to hit out the park.
Thompson seems to go to Yorker every ball for his death bowling, yet in that 19th over he executed so badly that the first four balls were all full tosses.
The batting still looks one batsman light, I think Smith needs to be tried higher up the order.
And I agree with the comments about Barnard's captaincy in this format. Some of the field placings were poor. The Taz Ali over has already been mentioned and there was another over (I can't remember who bowled but it was a seamer from the pavilion end) where we didn't have anyone at cow corner and two boundaries were one bounce fours over mid wickets head. To then top if off by bowling OHD in the last over who had gone for 48 off 3 was bizarre.
The positives are Taz still looks promising, Tariq looked effective yesterday and Webster's batting was what we hoped for.
Unfortunately there are just too many weak spots in the team this year so now we just have to hope it's not a totally embarrassing campaign.
agree with pretty much all of that
> Thompson seems to go to Yorker every ball for his death bowling, yet in that 19th over he executed so badly that the first four balls were all full tosses.
thats fine by me really- i'd rather someone has a clear plan than starting to make it up as they go along and improvise under pressure, and low full tosses can be just as difficult to get away.
it seemed to me Thompson's boundary balls came more from when he tried the slower ball change-ups than the full & fast stuff
Tariq looked effective yesterday and Webster's batting was what we hoped for.
Tariq has been very tidy 3 games out of 4, and Beau's batting yesterday significantly outperformed my expectations.
tariq is really a crafty bugger, I'd have to watch him from side-on for an innings or two to try and work out what exactly he's doing but he does seem to vary pace and flight quite a lot, even if the variations in 'flight' are really down to how low/high his arm is rather than really giving the ball air like a classic spinner.
bit of a dilemma in the context of webster's batting, does Mousley's return mean he automatically goes in at 3? My take on webster is he's like a big ocean going supertanker, he takes a long time to point himself in the right direction but can have a huge amount of momentum when he does. In that sense him coming in at number 6 with like 6 or 3 overs left may not be ideal as he doesn't look like the dude to hit sixes from ball one. in that sense no3 suits him as it gives him the seemingly large number of balls he needs to warm up and score quickly.
But is he worth a place in the top 5 when Mousley is available? shifting the dude who just got a near-ton down the order would seem strange especially as I'm not sure he's suited to it. really not sure.
Andy wrote:
Im really surprised by the criticism of Westwood, we were in such a bad place under Robinson, I think people forget.
well why not, people were crying for last year's leading scorer to be dropped after 2 bad games after all ;-)
in seriousness, I agree with you.
yeah the 4 day form was the first thing I thought, even though i tend to focus more on the T20 as I'm actually able to get to the games. say a top 3 finish in the CC absolutely should insulate his job almost irrespective of T20 results, although a winless season may get some attention
The_Lickey_Banker wrote:
Bald_Reynard wrote:
Inside-edge wrote:
Meanwhile Lintott has 3 Surrey wickets for 19 off his 4 overs.
I just logged in to post that very same thought - you beat me to it!
And how our current spin bowlers doing in this T20 season?! Of course, its all to do with welcoming wickets in Kent's group?!
> Or the renewed enthusiasm of someone who feels he is being valued and used to his full potential by his new 1st Team Coach!!
sadly i think this is likely to be true. If the result of Lintott going is Taz Ali blossoms, though, I can still see why they did it.
LeicesterExile wrote:
What a disappointment. But what is the point in playing Kai at 8 behind Woakes and Thompson.they would have been better off having Davies as keeper because as opener at least he may have scored half a dozen!
I thought it was a fair enough call, Thompson is more a threat to hit long balls than Smith, in theory Woakes may be too although i have no idea where his batting is nowadays as he has had precious little time at the crease in white ball cricket in the last couple of years
if we're being flexible in the order i think there also is a case for bringing Smith in earlier under some circumstances to face the spin in the middle overs, he's a good busy player of spin and between the wickets and would be a good foil for Hain.
the seam bowling especially in the power play was/is a real concern- Woakes looks like he is bowling right back down in speed to the low 80's mph compared to a few years ago when he added those couple of yards of pace, he and OHD just look really anemic and hittable on what is proving to be a good batting track so far, no pace and they aren't extracting whatever is there to be extracted from the new ball. the poor pp bowling also means Thompson is bound to end up bowling at least one early over and in the PP he's pretty much guaranteed to go for 10s- he did show his ability to bowl consistent yorkers at the death though which is good. if we ever have a close game he may even get to defend something, one day.
turns out Webster can bat in T20 after all, ha. Still noteworthy how long it took him to get going.
cjav1874 wrote:
For what it’s worth, I feel pretty sorry for Taz Ali who bowled immensely in that first game at Glos and has been asked to do a relatively thankless and almost experimental job thereafter.
Bowled three balls with no one behind square today, all of which went to the boundary and two from false shots. Extremely talented and full of potential, but not being given the surroundings to demonstrate his ability enough for me.
really good point IMO- he bowled better than his figures suggested yesterday even if there were two horrible long-hops in there