Rayb
Member
Well said! Hopefully it will be short lived and even more quickly, forgotten.
I am happy if you choose to pass over the decision to not enforce the follow on, all about opinions. The fact remains that they were already down and had just been bowled out, in less than a day, on their own muck heap, by a kid making his debut and a part time spinner, in 50 overs and facing the prospect of being back at the crease in 10 minutes. To say nothing of a 230+ first innings deficit!!!! Can you imagine who had to pick themselves up ? One and a half hours later they had 5 wickets in the bag and had been handed the ultimate get out of jail card. They couldn’t believe their luck, they would have been absolutely delighted and couldn’t wait to get at us next morning. Who would have slept the better that night? And us? We went back to our dressing room and hotel, with our tails between our legs and embarrassed. Totally unnecessary, crass, stupid arrogant, probably all of them.
They were out of the game, they were a beaten team. We threw them the lifeline. Why give yourself another decision to make- “how many do we need?”. Awful management and captaincy, I cannot believe for a minute that the decision not to enforce the follow on was one that was universally agreed, certainly not by Simmonds, the young man must have been champing at the bit to get out and have a go at them. I forget the last time this team played hard cricket, if you have your opponent down, and he was down, don’t give him a hand to get back up. Our young, talented, batsmen need to get into the nets with a proper coach or careers that included expectations of international acclaim (Hain included) will frizzle away. This story is the same as last year and the year before.
LeicesterExile wrote:
Not enforcing the follow on was, in my opinion, the right decision. We should then have batted them out the game a=by getting a lead well in excess of 400 with a day and half to getting the 10 2nd innings wickets.
Not sure when we can expect to be ambitious, or at least optimistic, given a target of 175 in 60 overs, on our own muck heap, against the divisions bottom team, (whatever happens they will still be bottom). Perhaps that might be our problem? I wonder how Surrey would view the same challenge? Or in fact the majority of counties.
Who mentioned 400? Have a look at the 350-400 innings, statistics can be picked out to fit any argument. The point being made (by myself, I fully accept) is that the Oval is a great batting square and given the opportunity to use it first, and grasp the initiative, is not an opportunity to be missed. This is simply my opinion, of course, but one that appears to have been shared by Surrrey captains down the years.
I got to around the 50% mark, I cannot listen to the man. Since when, in the middle of a hot spell, do Oval wickets become 250/300 tracks? That is not honest. Claiming that we were out bowled and out batted is stating the bloody obvious, but where was the out managed observation by deciding to bowl after winning the toss? And I refuse to accept that it was Rhodes decision alone.
Someone needs to follow Ed Barnard’s lead and put their hand up! Doubt that it will happen. Forgive me for going back to the first championship game of the season at Somerset, I still say that we should have won that game, instead we spoke of a “solid” start to the season. It’s a mindset, solid performances or wins? We handed Surrey the initiative this week, before a ball was bowled, and let’s face it, they are a very fine county championship team and do not need any hand outs.
Perhaps they had a team meeting and said, we fancy a couple of days in the field skip? It looked an awful decision at 10.40 when my wife said “they won the toss and decided to bowl” I said “please tell me that your joking”
I will say it now, hope I’m wrong, I have many eggs on my face, but cannot understand the decision to bowl!
Look at the scorecard, it’s all you need to know!
“Raging turner” are you joking? Dom Bess bowled close to 30 overs on day one, one maiden and never turned a ball. If it was a raging turner why didn’t Mousley bowl a single over?
Andy wrote:
People are overreacting.
I can't of think anyone who has been on such a sustained run of bad form that they actually should be dropped. Indeed we don't need wholesale changes to the squad at all. To say this season is similar to last season is way wide of the mark. Last season we struggled to bowl sides out and barely won a game. When we batted we batted so slowly that even when we batted 100 overs we might have only made 240. This season we've bowled sides out, put up bigger totals and actually won some games. Won away at Hampshire, we don't do that often. Beat a strong Essex side at home. Beat Kent on a flat pitch with the useless Kookaburra ball, a huge win, wouldn't have won that last season. We were capable of none of this last season.
In terms of the squad after losing Sibley and letting Lamb leave we are probably a back up batter light but prior to this game. Bethell has done quite well particularly when you factor in what he's been exposed to i.e Essex away on a raging turner and S. Harmer. Players like Bethell need to be given opportunity, they won't always do well, he's had 1 bad game in a game where many batters didn't get a score. Barnard is getting criticism but remember he wasn't exactly a heavy wicket taker at Worcestershire though yes he has had a poor 3 games with the bat and he could do with a score. He balances the side, a 4th seamer who can run through some tight overs and maybe nick us a wicket, he has done this for us. He's never gonna run through sides, he's never done that.
One area that does need addressing at the moment is game management. That's 2 weeks running now where we've had a significant collapse right at the start of the day. Today's was totally avoidable, Hain getting out like he did to de Caires exposed the lower middle order to the new ball against fresh bowlers. Mousley getting out yesterday afternoon was huge in the context of this game, Middlesex were starting to look a little bit demoralised and were dying to get off for the forecasted rain. So for Mousley to get out the way he did, after playing so well, with the field set the way it was (no slips in, Middlesex were in total defensive mode), was incredibly frustrating/naive. Had we have started today with Hain and Mousley, 2 well set batters at the crease against the new ball, today could have gone a different way. Maybe.
Game management.
We don’t have many squad options and I’m not sure that many of our first team regulars are that bad. I do think however that we need a far more robust attitude to our four day cricket, our bowlers and more importantly our captain and coach, need to realise that having the opposition 7 down does not mean they are all out! In addition our batters need to spend more time with a batting coach who impresses on them that 20/30 is not enough.
We Left when Burgess was out after a couple of balls, forfeited a night in the Premier Inn and headed for home so missed the only real resistance shown by Warwickshire players in three days. It is obvious that the toss was crucial but we have to be a bit more creative than shown this week. Bess bowled nearly 30 overs on day one, one maiden and went for four and a half an over never beating the bat. Mousley had taken four wickets 36 hours before the start of this game (admittedly with a white ball) and never got to turn his arm over, Yates bowled 2 overs for 4 runs? The start of day two was also strange in that we were presented with the only serious cloud cover of the three days and yet we started with Bess bowling from the river end whilst Hassan Ali stood scratching his head on the boundary with the ball twice going over his head for six as the Essex tail chased their final batting point. The endless conferences between Rhodes and Davies, with the apparent decision reached being “leave it as it is” was depressing. Batting on the same wicket an hour or so later we managed to make things look very different indeed, Davies still plays some very strange shots at times, deciding to lift his bat to avoid it getting in the way of the ball hitting the stumps is a decision that I hope he reflects on going forward.
Body language alone, in the last two games, seems to tell a story. The intensity that seemed so evident appears to have disappeared, it’s not difficult to come up with reasons for this, even if they are not entirely accurate. But I imagine that they might be.
Very nice win. Didn’t waste too much prime time, thankfully! Well done Bears.
Wasting prime time.
If we had shown the intent spoken of by the management, we would of won the game. Opportunity missed!