Frustrating end to the day. The youtube feed is a bit of a revelation in that you can see players techniques up close. Hain always has that crooked backlift but when out of form, which must be where he is now, looked a walking wicket with no idea where his off stump was. With six balls to go before everyone knew the rain would take over the day, it was inevitable he wouldn't last it.

So are all those collapses bad technique or psychological? Looks like both.

Frustrating end to the day. The youtube feed is a bit of a revelation in that you can see players techniques up close. Hain always has that crooked backlift but when out of form, which must be where he is now, looked a walking wicket with no idea where his off stump was. With six balls to go before everyone knew the rain would take over the day, it was inevitable he wouldn't last it.

So are all those collapses bad technique or psychological? Looks like both.

Would be difficult for him after so much residency here. I don't know his parents status (ie are they aussie) and also don't know if he has played for the England second team or not. If he's played for the Lions it makes it very hard to change. Perhaps most important l don't know if he wants to do that or not - and he's said before he's more English than Aussie.

ajones1328 wrote:

BristolBear wrote:

Excellent for Briggs.
But in my head that just shows England have no interest in Hain no matter what. Which is bizarre.

Does he still have opportunity to play for Australia ? Must be considering a switch now.

Would be difficult for him after so much residency here. I don't know his parents status (ie are they aussie) and also don't know if he has played for the England second team or not. If he's played for the Lions it makes it very hard to change. Perhaps most important l don't know if he wants to do that or not - and he's said before he's more English than Aussie.

ajones1328 wrote:

BristolBear wrote:

Excellent for Briggs.
But in my head that just shows England have no interest in Hain no matter what. Which is bizarre.

Does he still have opportunity to play for Australia ? Must be considering a switch now.

Curran basically gets picked as he's a left armer and he's an agressive left-handed bat. Makes a lot of difference in T20 change every over routine.

Not able to play two consecutive games according to Eoin Morgan last night. Saw on a Guardian cricket article, comments seem to lean towards the knees not being so good. Not news, but hope for him there hasn't been more deterioration and you do wonder about what that means for red ball anytime soon...

Good knowledge. I have no idea of the weather there. Also agree re Pollock. I think the club will say his role is to smoke everything though. As you say, that's not what lost us tonight, three consecutive batsmen going in single figures in several overs is always going to be hard to come back from.

Streetly_Bear wrote:

I think we do need to at least acknowledge the weather conditions. We lost the toss and batted in overcast and damp conditions, it brightened up by the end with actual sun and blue sky.

That being said too many batsmen didn’t contribute a thing, far too many single figures.

I know he scored 40 odd but I find Pollock extremely frustrating, he simply looks to smash everything. I personally think that is not the right approach for every innings. But he is not at fault for us losing today.

We simply gave too many wickets away cheaply.

Could be worse than that. I'm seeing George o twitter grab a few photos of what seems like hundreds on the outfield. He says pitch invasion. The club being in trouble might be the least of it...

To the game: just from looking at the scorecard it's that lack of firepower again I guess. Pollock got in, Then Lamb and Burgess just had to dig in and couldn't go on to then increase the rate when it came.

Streetly_Bear wrote:

The club could easily get in a lot of trouble for the complete disregard for social distancing rules.

Quite frankly it’s a disgrace.

I'm slightly surprised by this as he's had, on the face of it, a rather light, but impactful, workload to the start of the season. From a casual look at his action, no obvious sign of danger there either. If you look at Mark Wood or Jofra Archer, you can see why they get injured with all that 'explosiveness'. I guess just something in Stone's musculature that creates these injuries. Good lu k to him getting back

Agree with a lot happy to see Pollock score runs. He's suffered in the past being stuck with Ian Bell opening and has had to score for both of them, though with Hose going so well he had that rare luxury of being able to play himself in today. I can't remember what happened last year, but is the absence of OHD expected? In my minds eye I had him as a more reliable death bowler than Brookes - but saw little of last year.

Just watched the five overs after lunch and its moving miles. OHD in particular seems to be struggling to control it, though, and Miles looks the more threatening - two wickets after all. That lack of accuracy might explain why we keep failing to finish teams off. Really important to be accurate if the attack is pretty much exclusively right arm medium. Willing to be corrected if this is an OHD aberration.

Have to see how Derby go on it, might be one of those pitches that plays harder than it looks. I've mentioned on this forum a few times before that our batting is better than it was last year - but there's some huge holes and I think they're mainly psychological. One of Burgess or Hain could have really gone on today and there were others who got out just as they were getting in.

Yah. I don't argue with you on that. One of the many examples of the ECB not understanding fans, supporters and the grassroots. It's them I think are the real issue, ECB are Woakes' employer.

Streetly_Bear wrote:

If that’s the case then that’s the decision, but my issue is that we (fans and members) are not really being communicated that narrative. Without which only bad feelings towards all of the parties can occur.

As for the game, not the best of starts…

For a bit more info on Woakes look at George's cricinfo report from the last game. The gist of it was Woakes was going to play in ODIs this summer and therefore wouldn't play red ball domestic, at least at this part of the season. I don't really buy the narrative that Woakes is being held hostage by the ECB, he probably wants this. He's a 30xx year old with dodgy knees, if I was him I would want enough international cricket to secure franchise gigs and Warwicks only to loosen and fine tune. I also feel he loves the club and wants to pay us back - but I think that might be optimistic. Same situation with Ian Bell, desire was there just his ability had gone by the time it came to be.

My word there was some tension on that 110 over bonus point cut off! I consider our batting better than last year and unquestionably it's best days are ahead of us ... however we nearly made a total mess of that. Seemed stuck between a plan of accelerating for the third batting point while stodging to stop them getting their third bowling point. To have laid the foundation of 230/3 then lose wickets just at the time they needed to accelerate is one of the many batting strategies they need to work on.

I know what you mean, it's not necessarily ECB who are mandating any of this. I got a question answered by the Guardian's cricket correspondent Ali Martin a week or so back in that he seemed to think Woakes wasn't looking to wind down his Warwicks commitments, like Bell he senses he owes the club a bit, so it seems motivation is there. I had previously sensed Woakes didn't want to do much country cricket anymore. I think the same could be said of Jofra Archer, of which there is some conjecture he could miss the entire of this season to be ready for T20 world cup and the ashes.

Exiled Bear wrote:

Do we know for sure that it's the ECB that have prevented Woakes from playing? Given how much he's been away from home/in bubbles over the last year there's a chance that he may have chosen to spend some time with his family.

The game being rained off is better than losing it, but those lack of batting points have already cost us with this group being so tight. A few have mentioned Rhodes. It's only a few matches in so I don't think there's thoughts of him moving yet. But Yates and Malan opening (once Sibley goes to England) Lamb, Hain, Rhodes might work better. Not sure about Lamb moving up to three at this stage anyway, everyone apart from Bresnan is averaging below potential at the moment.

Brings me to my observation of the season. Were Hain and Lamb anything to do with ropey technique?

I saw 15 mins before lunch and Malan and Yates looked to be very correct against a few balls from Leach that were right in the areas to exploit dampish May conditions.

white-lightning wrote:

Poor dismissals for Malan, Hain & Lamb. I really don't know what Hain's improvised short sweep was meant to be? Absolutely no need to play that sort of shot at this stage. Rob Yates is showing good discipline....

Agree for all the points you make. I think it is largely the fault of the pandemic though and we will head back to normality eventually. It might well self-regulate in it is here to stay. The ECB set our crazy schedule for commercial reasons. If the coaches end up putting out weakened sides for every series, then you assume the schedule will eventually be pared back.

For comparison: Baseball has around 160-180 games in an eight month season. Games last as long as a T20 and there are usually six games a week in blocks of three. The pitchers rotate all the way through and there isn't a sense of being short changed. Just that squads build up a huge "bull pen" of high quality but complementary players.There is a point that there's only one pitcher per game so it is inherently different. But the acceptance that you will have, say, ten roughly equal quality bowlers in a squad isn't in cricket yet.

BristolBear wrote:

I do hate the rotation policy. I could slightly understand it with the bubbles. 12+ months living in a bubble must have been very tough.
But then some imposed it on themselves going to the IPL.
Also, with rotation now everyone loses. England lose because they don’t get their best side, counties lose because they don’t get their best players even if they’re not playing, and the players lose because they risk losing their place to someone else even if they’ve been playing well.
The test side has very little cross over with the T20 squad so I hope it stops this summer.

Glad he got out reasonably promptly. From the IPL statement it sounded like they were struggling to do that. Purely on merit I agree with you m on the test team. But they will probably rotate the whole summer which I see as Woakes, Broad and Anderson switching for each other and then the quicks Wood, Archer and Stone, doing the same. You could argue if Woakes needed this rest given he has bowled a maximum of 12 competitive over the last 8 months. BristolBear wrote:

I just saw a report that both Woakes and Billings have left India and will be back in the UK today or tomorrow to begin 10 days of quarantine. Which, assuming he's allowed to play, would mean he'd be available against Essex on May 20th.

You'd have thought it would be in the ECB's interests to let him play. The match would finish a week before the New Zealand series, if he was selected, and he'd get some red ball cricket in. As they won't be in bubbles this summer, I'm assuming players could return to their counties too unlike last year.

I do also wonder if he's slipped down the red ball pecking order for England, and Warwickshire might have him during the test series. Archer, Anderson, Broad will all start if they're fit which it seems they will be. Then Curran was preferred to Woakes over the winter, plus you've now got Robinson at Sussex who was in the squad last summer, he's getting a lot of wickets again with the England coaches watching him twice this season already, so it's tight for the 4th seamers spot.