They aren't rally tucking into it - played themselves in. Burgess was probably slightly better than expected. Rhode was keeping to Burgess, suffice to say he won't be taking up the gloves again anytime soon.

I know it's been mentioned before but Clive Eakin's breath intakes are infuriating. It's bad enough when the game is exciting, when it's dead like this at the moment... i'm turning off because of it.

Burgess opening the bowling!

At what point does Tony Frost start being questioned?

If he comes off I wonder if there is any chance he plays next season too

Yeah I'm not sure Barnard or H Brookes have hit either of theirs.

But doesn't take away from the really poor batting from us. Got to start questioning our mentality in knockout games since Robinson came in.

Anyone know what happens if it's rained off?

Tayls79 wrote:

There's another aspect to the post-100 players coming back: would they improve the team? For us the opening partnership plus three can't be improved, most of the bowling can't really be improved (come back to this) even 6/7 Ethan has locked down. But our middle order could be. As it stands its Davies, Bethell and Burgess and none of them have scored too heavily. Ot must be tempting to return Hain and Mousley.

Woakes is interesting. He's in the ODI squad in September but not the IT20s next week so I can see him replacing Brookes (H) or Miles for the semi final for fine tuning purposes for England.

In all cases, I wouldn't though. Not for moral reasons but for cricketing reasons. None of the returning players are as assured as the picks that are there already. I think Hamza was a bit unlucky to be dropped but putting him straight back into to a semi final is probably a step too far.

Woakes did play a couple of games in the Hundred, but didn't play the last game.

I fully expect him to be unavailable.

Interesting that Lancashire have picked Luke Wells and Gloucestershire picked David Payne for the knockout game despite neither playing in any other game up to this point.

In theory I would like to think Warwickshire won't do this, but then in reality we have one or two players who are very inexperienced who have been picked for group games.

Worcestershire have just announced the signing of Tom Taylor. After losing all those players they definitely needed to replace them. This is the best of the three they have announced so far, a decent bowler and become very handy with the bat over the course of this season.

ExiledBrummie wrote:

I presume we will finish top even if we lose?

We are already guaranteed to be ahead of Worcestershire, and it must be very close if not already happened, that it's become impossible for Gloucestershire to overtake our NRR.

So in short, yes we will finish top regardless.

I've not watched any of today, but looking at the scorecard they were 200-6 after 42.5 overs, and finished on 275 - how did that happen?

Tayls79 wrote:

It does make sense to rest one or two. I just get worried every time Burgess gets rested thinking it's a prelude to him leaving. Especially if Davies gets the gloves. Would have thought Barnard must be due a rest, he's barely stopped this competition.

I have the same thoughts, although yesterday for the first time I thought would he be a massive miss?

I think the answer is yes he would still be a miss, as he's a much better gloveman than Davies and does still have a lot of talent with the bat, he's just scratching for form atm. Seems like he's been struggling to time it all year.

Neither Smith nor Shaikh did anything to deserve being dropped so one of those at least should play tomorrow.

Team above seems fairest, I'm disappointed Davies is having another go as he didn't look arsed yesterday in the field.

Presumably him and Briggs will be available for the semi, so makes sense to bring Briggs in now.

Is it the same wicket as Thursday or slightly less close to the boundary?

Yeah what do we all know.

Hardly anyone seemed to be able to score on that, which makes Barnard's innings seem especially good in hindsight.

Our bowling plans were exactly right. Full and wide outside off away from the short boundary for when it was leg side. Short when the short boundary was offside.

Not enough for me. I think 120 was minimum but who knows with one of these.

Burgess and Rhodes both in for a while but neither got going.

Also northants missed the cut off by two minutes, after it got pushed back by a minute, and got no punishment.

The boundary is outrageous.

Barnard plinked one for six

Two separate lots of rain since the forecasts said it would stop and now we're the only game not playing.

I think the next inspection is last chance saloon.

Latest play can go until is 6:30pm, meaning the start time would be 4:56pm after calculations.

Yep, it is only the top team that goes straight through to the semi final. I wouldn't say a no result hinders qualification chances, a no result here and we would only need one more point to qualify but a win would put us in a very strong position to top the group (would have to lose both games and have a significant RR swing).

What is the latest possible start time for one of these games, does anyone know?