encouraging late-order hitting from Bamber and Booth in both games

interesting indeed, cheers. I hope his good start continues and he really flourishes down there

good to see a trego lad carrying on the family tradition

Andy wrote:

Comparing the economy rates of spinners in the t20 Blast now against spinners who bowled in the t20 Blast 7 years ago is a bit odd.

indeed, albeit its positively normal compared to judging a career average against an average derived from 2 games.

going back to the original discussion, good batting teams need to find ways of being proactive against (largely) spin in the middle overs, and Barnard aside our middle order currently is set up very badly for this as both Hain and Webster look like they are prone to passivity and being strangled.

i doubt anything will be done about it but we have better, more proactive players of spin either opening (Davies), or currently not in the team at all (Kai). If I was an opposition coach I'd be licking my lips hoping both Hain and Webster were at the crease as early as possible and bowling 10 overs of spin minimum at them.

looking at the way we approached target-setting I'd say Westwood's approach is very conservative, which can be fine up to a certain point if you have the bowling attack. we won the tournament with a batting lineup that by their own admissions weren't going to put on huge scores like other teams could- they would make sure they posted some kind of score and be confident the Jeetan-led attack could defend it, which they mostly could

I feel like our current lineup and approach fails on both counts, albeit getting Mousley and Gleeson back will be a big tonic (assuming we do)

Interesting to see where they bat Webster on Mousley's return. i don't think he rates a place in our top 5 at that point myself.

FarmerPalmer wrote:

Think Lintott suffered from a captain who didn’t know what to do with him (Davies). He’d give him one over take him off but spinners need a rhythm. Briggs always got at least three, Lintott only one. At Kent, they clearly have confidence in him and his 2-25 against Middlesex was up against Rossington whacking it about and his figures (which were economical) against Sussex was against the new king Cole’s. If the captain and management back you you will have the confidence to succeed. Davies and Barney to an extent didn’t have faith and Westwood definitely didn’t. Still the Bears loss is very much Kent and Billings gain.

all true and good points.

Highveld wrote:

"Jeetan went for 7.26 an over in 2019 and 8.51 in 2020, his last season in the Blast."

Both of which are lower than the run rates for our current spinners, significantly lower in the case of the expensive overseas international player.

the overseas player you've currently had 2 whole games to form a sample size from.

GerryShedd wrote:

Well, maybe. Jeetan went for 7.26 an over in 2019 and 8.51 in 2020, his last season in the Blast.

by his standards that was indeed 'going about the park a bit' given his 6.5 career average. later in his career he got hit for match figures that would have seemed inconceivable in 2015

Andy wrote:

ITE7376 wrote:

LeicesterExile wrote:

I want to know who changed by post and put Freddie in there ha ha I'm sure I didn't type it so will just blame Google. I've corrected it now. Given your final sentence perhaps this is something most teams suffer from most of the time. Could it be the change from pace to spin after only 6 overs creates a problem in batsmen's minds?

---

there's often a change of tempo after over 6, but I feel like the better batting teams don't drop off, or drop off much less. it definitely seems to me that the better batting teams refuse let the spin bowlers settle into a rhythm and do everything possible to throw them off, and will be scoring at a good clip throughout the 20 overs rather than relying on either power play or the death to really score big..

It doesn't make sense to let a whole 8 overs creep by and allow yourself to be dictated to in terms of scoring rate, that puts a huge amount of pressure on whoever is batting at the death. .

Late in Jeetan's career with us it seemed teams had a premeditated tactic of getting the sweep/especially reverse sweep out against him early and it definitely seemed to play a role in stopping him dictating to them.

Yep. People didn't like hearing it but in his last 2 or 3 seasons Jeets was going round the park quite a bit in the Blast and there was maybe a case for him not being in the side. Had to get Chris Green in during 2019 to do his heavy lifting for him. And I absolutely loved Jeetan Patel.

absolutely indeed, probably my favourite ever Bear.

For context, in 2019/20 our power play bowling was so putrid that we were forced to bowl Jeets 1 maybe even 2 overs in the PP, where he had seldom bowled up to that point. with only one boundary-rider square, on the leg side, the reverse sweep for the right hander was almost a gimme for them.

LeicesterExile wrote:

I want to know who changed by post and put Freddie in there ha ha I'm sure I didn't type it so will just blame Google. I've corrected it now. Given your final sentence perhaps this is something most teams suffer from most of the time. Could it be the change from pace to spin after only 6 overs creates a problem in batsmen's minds?

there's often a change of tempo after over 6, but I feel like the better batting teams don't drop off, or drop off much less. it definitely seems to me that the better batting teams refuse let the spin bowlers settle into a rhythm and do everything possible to throw them off, and will be scoring at a good clip throughout the 20 overs rather than relying on either power play or the death to really score big..

It doesn't make sense to let a whole 8 overs creep by and allow yourself to be dictated to in terms of scoring rate, that puts a huge amount of pressure on whoever is batting at the death. .

Late in Jeetan's career with us it seemed teams had a premeditated tactic of getting the sweep/especially reverse sweep out against him early and it definitely seemed to play a role in stopping him dictating to them.

LeicesterExile wrote:

I was agreeing with the comments made by ITE until I looked at the stats produced by Highveld. After two innings Hain has scored the most runs,,has the best average, the best highest score and 2nd highest strike rate. But it is a fact we have this slow spell in the middle of the innings something that Briggs and Flintoff achieved when bowling in previous seasons.

yeah it seems counter-intuitive to say the least to criticise Hain haha and I was saying it more about the partnership of Webster and Hain yesterday than just Hain, but I will stand by:

(1) Hain and webster chewed up 65 balls between them, over hald the innings. total runs 93, strike rate 143. that translates to a score of 171 if all out batsmen did that 'well'. to chew up that many balls for SR143 on a pitch like that, is a match-losing contribution from the two of them

it would have been more obvious had Somerset batted first and set the 220 that pitch deserved and their innings showed they were more than capable of

if webster and Hain had those innings chasing 220 instead of setting a 190 that turned out to be putrid, the poor scoring rate would have been much more stark.

(2) Hain across his career has scored slowly in the middle overs, has never been a player who attacks and dominates spin. he needs to be playing with the right partner(s) and having Webster with him, glacial ponderous footwork and agonising patience and all, is like choosing the exact, polar opposite of a good partner for hain in the middle overs.

But it is a fact we have this slow spell in the middle of the innings something that Briggs and Flintoff achieved when bowling in previous seasons.
its something (middle over squeeze) we have generally done much better as a bowling unit than a batting unit over the years, yes. not sure wheer Flintoff's name came from haha but never mind i get your point

LeicesterExile wrote:

I think we are already missing him and Briggs. They would slow down the middle overs with their bowling most times

to be fair Lintott's economy got worse every year with us and was pretty poor in T20 last year IIRC. I mean, I agree we miss him, i would have wanted to keep him, but his last 2 years with us were his worst so i can see why they'd want to give a chance to Taz Ali.

The look of our batting lineup and their approach on sunday was wrong, to me.

you've got Webster and Hain coming in at 3/4 which means by law of averages the two of them are going to end up spending a lot of time playing spin in the middle overs. But Webster looks to be a poor player of spin in white ball cricket, too big and immobile just doesn't seem to have the footwork, doesn't use the sweep and on current evidence won't look to just smash through the line and bully spin/medium pace in the middle overs.

And as good as Hain is, the absolutely worst part of his batting is his inability/unwillingness to attack spinners, he's basically never really taken spinners to the cleaners, ever. I remember him hammering Matt Carter once at home, like. His career SR is 150, I bet its something like 125 vs spin and 165 vs seam.

If I think about truly great/destructive players against spin, they generally do at least one of, either use their feet to change the length of the delivery or access either side of the wicket (and short boundaries) better, or use the sweep/reverse sweep, or if all else fails just find a way to smash/muscle to ball somewhere over the leg side boundary, and the really good ones will do all 3 at some point. Hain basically does none of them and never has.

Hain has, and we have for years, spent far too long just allowing the spinners to bowl at us in the middle overs, just accept 6-8 an over and basically hope that Hain is left at the end to take the seamers down for 10-15 an over at the death. Goldsworthy is tidy but not a world beater and it wasn't till Ed came on and used his feet at him that anyone really tried to put him off his game, we just passively let him bowl at us. we almost always do this, and on what was clearly not a 190 par surface it was as responsible as anything for us losing the game

Hain's passivity against spin means he really needs someone like Mousley or Bethell (Or ed) with him to take those risks, both of whom were excellent foils for him as they'd do his attacking for him in the middle overs. But hain partnered with Webster I foresee a lot of excruciating passages of play during overs 6-14 tbh.

back to hobby horse if hain was opening he'd face mostly seam for the first 6 overs and have power play restrictions to get cheap boundaries and take some lower-risk attacking shots. and if Davies was batting at 4 he's much more pro-active against the spin and we'd be getting bogged down less. thank goodness Somerset only had 4 overs of spin to throw at us, it could have been really ugly if they'd had another spinner

Hain's tactic of playing pretty much risk-free for the majority of his innings and hoping to be around at the end, and then making up by scoring very quickly, places a huge onus on him taking advantage of nearly every single ball in the last 4. what if he doesn't manage to get the strike much? what if the bowlers simply bowl well? a lot of them have had success bowling the short/slow stuff at him at the death and daring him to try and muscle a six off a 65mph bouncer, which he can't/won't do- I mean its not like teams haven't had a while to work out tactics for his strengths and weaknesses over the last decade.

as with Trotty in white ball cricket, I have to wonder with Hain at what point his aversion to taking risks before the last 4 overs amounts to tactical error or even selfishness. that was a 200+ par wicket all day, you're going to struggle ever getting 200 if you just resign yourself to going at 6-8 in the middle overs, and judging by the number of attacking shots hain and Webster played, that seemed to be the tactic.

Ed got out because he was playing the situation unselfishly (and with more tactical awareness IMO) to play a shot a ball because at that point someone needed to , and he was kind of forced into that by Webster/hain's slow scoring.

To me that was an obvious 200+par pitch where we almost settled for 190, with middle order batsmen not taking enough risk when they have proven late order hitters behind them all the way to number 8. I know, fells like sacrilege to criticise Hain, but at least as many times as he has ambled to over number 16 with SR of 125 and then hammered the last 4 overs to get us to or near 200, he has also had loads of innings where he did just what he did on Sunday- marked time for a late over burst that never came, whilst putting pressure on his partners to take risks he wasn't taking. He has also had games where his late innings blitz did come off but the 200 he just about got us to, proved insufficient and the opposition showed he was batting on a 220 par pitch all along. betting on the last 4 overs giving you enough runs to make up for taking very few risks in over 7-15 is very risky against good batting teams on good pitches. 200 is not the totem it used to be.

I feel like there are different ways of taking on responsibility in cricket and in T20 sometimes taking risks is taking on the responsibility. It feels weird criticising our best and my favourite player but that innings had some real deja vu to it and not in a good way.

It could be that Hain is playing to orders, and Westwood's conservative style. when i think back to that season when Hain got a century against Notts away I think 2024, when his SR that season was i think 165, way better than his usual, he was conspicuously more attacking early in his innings, and we kept on getting 200 that year with him and Hose both attacking much more in the middle overs.

so i don't think it's inability on Hain's part and apparently when the team approach is more attacking he absolutely can do it, so can only assume he is playing a too-conservative role management have forced onto him.

For clarity, Jordan Thompson figures v us in the Blast, most recent first:

4-0-41-2
4-0-31-4
3-0-38-2
4-0-41-1
4-0-47-0
4-0-23-3
4-0-41-1

Mixed bag.

that neatly encapsulates Thompson's career figures

it means a strike rate of 12.4 which is outstanding (career SR is about 15, IIRC, significantly better than Danny Briggs and right up there with any seamer in the domestic game)

economy of 9.7, poor.

whether the 12.4 SR is 'worth' the expensive economy figures tends to depend on circumstances. if he gets hit for 30 his first 2 overs but then comes back and gets 2-12 his last 2 and cuts off the chase at the death, he's virtually won the match despite the expensive first 2.

he isn't just reputed to be a good death bowler, I don't think, he's done well in that role for quite some time.

the 1/4 final v Surrey a few years back when he defended 3 or 4 being a notable example.
i think it was 5 he defended but whatever, also IIRC he scored 50 off about 19 balls in a semi final that year.

notwithstanding his terrible performance against us last year (when he didn't even play), all in all he is a proven performer, more so than garton ever was.

Mikkyk wrote:

Jani has shown more in the 50 over stuff in terms of ability to score quickly/hit big and his form in the seconds has been better than Shaikh's. I don't see Malik as a T20 batsman.

good point he showed that at Southport and taunton last year IIRC

I guess for me if everyone is fit I'd go something like

yates
davies
barnard
Hain
Webster
Thompson
Woakes
Garton
Booth
Ali
Tariq

the all rounders start relatively early in the order and Thompson maybe a place high but there's really good 6-hitting ability from 5 all the way up to 9. heavy on seam options light on spin but i don't see much alternative to that in fact the lack of spin options almost makes me want another seam option to make up for it.

whitelightning wrote:

Also, what about Bamber, he is a wicket tacker that could cause damage upfront and he can also hit

i was thinking the same about booth haha, but is he injured?

Mikkyk wrote:

I agree that this is our weakest team for a few years. Briggs is a huge loss and I can't see Tariq or Taz (yet) making the impact that he did. Also lost Moeen, who did contribute at times. As you say take out Mousley and Gleeson and that's four of the starting XI from last season gone. No Bethell either.

The two overseas are going to have to go very well for us to make an impact on the competition this year.

My guess at the XI - Yates, Davies, Hain, Barnard, Jani, Smith, Garton, Thompson, Woakes, Ali, Tariq.

If Garton isn't fit then I would expect OHD to be the seamer and everyone else shuffle up the order. Or perhaps OHD plays anyway and one of Smith/Jani drops out.

No Bethell either. oh jeez I'd forgotten that.

Also lost Moeen, who did contribute at times.
as hit and miss as his batting was I feel like his contributions with the ball will be missed much more. having that genuine spin option batting in the top 5 and being able to bowl minimum 12 overs of 'proper' spin is an invaluable option.

I think Tariq will do pretty well, i imagine he'll be tight or even very tight but he won't offer the wicket-taking threat, breaking of key partnerships and taking key wickets, that Briggs did. His weird action and only short spells to work him out will keep him difficult for people to get used to. hopefully.

pretty much as you say I think Briggs will be the one who is most missed, though.

jani over (say) Shaikh or Malik is an interesting one- out of interest what's your reasoning there?

Andy wrote:

No Mousley. No Glees. Tariq in? Taz in? Woakes back? Webster 3? Shaikh in? Where Garton? He's not played any 2's as far as I can tell.

I feel like Taz has to play as we aren't just short of Briggs and Lintott but also the various batting spinners we've been able to take for granted for the last several years with Maxwell/Moeen/Mousley all of whom being big contributors with the ball. but then i'm massively biased towards home grown youngsters and leggies in particular and just want to see him given the chance.

I feel like Webster coming in around 4-5 as the Paul Walter/ Tristan Stubbs type big hitter in the last 10 overs is the best place for him tactically, pretty sure that's been his role in the BBL

Where Garton? He's not played any 2's as far as I can tell. jeez. inconsistent as he can be this doesn't fill you with any confidence does it. Can't imagine he'll be trotting in to let his first delivery go with real confidence, and given his documented issues there it's a concern

i was always of the opinion that with his excellent death bowling and hitting from 6/7 in the order (6 may be a tad high but he's a proven late order hitter, actually that is one thing Garton did pretty well last year) Thompson might make Garton surplus to requirements anyway, unless they really lust for a left arm option who can swing the ball early (on his good days at least).

I feel like it'll be the weakest team on paper that we have put out in time, given Mousley and Gleeson's absence. also the one where before game 1 there are the most unanswered questions in terms of who will actually play

I'll just mention once and hopefully manage to leave it the rest of the year but I'll never understand why Hain doesn't open. in just about every other team the best bat gets to face maximum number of balls. and someone like Hain who doesn't really have the knack of coming in and scoring quickly can sometimes end up putting themselves and the team under a lot of pressure if they end up coming in after over 10. plus he would have the power play to pick up the odd cheap boundary to get him going.

I guess the logic is either not wanting him exposed to the new ball or having him there to finish the innings (I get the latter point), but I feel like with his style he could do that as an opener anyway, I mean he ends up coming in before the end of the power play at least as often as not in any case. coming in at 4 also means if the top 3 do well he will nearly always come in when the spinners are on, he isn't great at attacking the spin, at all, he often seems to get bogged down overs 8-15 or so and its virtually guaranteed he takes his first 10/15 balls at a run a ball.

Woakes back? Woakes back and on form would be a major bonus on all 3 aspects of the game. bit worried about his lack of cricket over the last year or so

all in all I feel like this may be the first year in donkey's we don't submit ourselves to the annual torture of the quarter final capitulation and get a win ratio just over 50%

Tayls79 wrote:

What rather obscures things with England is they don't pick England prospects on outputs. They pick on a load of intangible things like youth, potential, playing roles, leadership. In a word: #Vibes. Gets even more intangible when you think about the likes of Zak Crawley.

On outcomes, Mousley definitely isn't there. Neither was Bethell and he then got his first three top-flight centuries playing for England. Not saying Dan has the same potential, but I think England have identified something in him. Otherwise they wouldn't be picking him - even for the Lions.

oh, absolutely (although the mood music recently seems to suggest they have suddenly started taking county form seriously again), I even used the 'V' word myself in a post above

some they have got right, some much less so, my problem with the Crawley choice was probably more the amount of time they gave him than the choice itself, and I can totally see how, if you saw him in full flow on a good day, you'd fall in love with the idea of him.

Of course picking an offspinner with about 10 first class games under his belt, based on a 90 second youtube clip of him bowling at Alistair Cook, said offspinner having now had to pack his bags for Derby as he can't get in the Somerset team above England Reject Jack Leach, is probably the apogee of their whimsical, almost flippant approach to selection.

Not saying Dan has the same potential, but I think England have identified something in him

yeah I guess so, like you say he's pretty much always been less conspicuously brilliant than Bethell.

Exiled Bear wrote:

ITE7376 wrote:

Must be seen as a prospect for White Ball though and I think he fits in both senior squads, so you'd expect he is named in the limited overs Lions squads.

honestly I don't think he's quite good enough, still time to develop though but I don't see that level of higher end potential in someone who'd played first class cricket for about 6 years/45 games before he got his maiden first class ton.

I mean if say Joe Clarke has never got a chance for England in any format, having significantly outperformed Mousley in all 3 formats both across his career right now, and at the same point in their respective careers, i just don't see it.

I think Joe Clarke also didn’t get a chance because of his involvement in that rape trial a few years back. He was in the Lions squad at that point.

yeah that definitely would have put a spoke in the wheels of any aspirations he had, as I recall it he was looked at as a real prospect in his early days at Worcester. still, he's been a very consistent bordering prolific run-getter for over a decade now including the Big Bash.

I suppose a contrasting example would be ben Duckett who got his England chance relatively late in his career having shown a lot of promise early. As i recall it in his early years at Northants he had a better red ball record than Mousley, like 1000 runs in a a season sort of thing.

Must be seen as a prospect for White Ball though and I think he fits in both senior squads, so you'd expect he is named in the limited overs Lions squads.

honestly I don't think he's quite good enough, still time to develop though but I don't see that level of higher end potential in someone who'd played first class cricket for about 6 years/45 games before he got his maiden first class ton.

I mean if say Joe Clarke has never got a chance for England in any format, having significantly outperformed Mousley in all 3 formats both across his career right now, and at the same point in their respective careers, i just don't see it.