Woakes and Ali confirmed as in the England team!

Potentially England will keep Lawrence as a concussion sub.

Not too many surprises in the squad:
Alex Davies (C)
Ed Barnard
Chris Benjamin
Jacob Bethell
Ethan Brookes
Henry Brookes
Dominic Drakes
Sam Hain
Olly Hannon-Dalby
Jake Lintott
Glenn Maxwell
Dan Mousley
Will Rhodes
Rob Yates

Good that Dan Mousley is in the squad. It looked serious when he appeared to sustain a finger injury against Durham last Sunday. I suppose at least Ali and Woaksey aren't drinks carriers!

Must be a big game to get some words in the Mail

https://www.birminghammail.co.uk/sport/cricket/how-bears-overcame-england-call-27261137

https://live.nvplay.com/ecb/?tab=m_summary#m917c248f-8fb1-47f9-b56e-e36a2cc01f4c

Team as expected. 4 front line bowlers (I think you have to count Henry B and OHD - although their recent T20 record isn't great!) plus Maxwell & Mousley. Sam H back.

We lost the toss and were put in!

Game is live on you tube - sky cricket section.

Bears 104/5 with 14 overs gone. Strange that England released Dan Lawrence for this.....why wasn't Woakes released in the last test?

A decent score got to bowl well, hopefully the 3 spinners are on form as they have been.

Another year. Another choke in the quarter finals.
If Essex could run properly between the wickets it wouldn’t have even been close. Let alone their massive attempt to blow it in the last 2 overs.
The batting is just too Hain reliant. Need someone else to pitch in consistently.
Just seen a stat that sums it up really: 2 players that we let leave the club entirely and on loan this season in Hose and Burgess both averaged more than all our batsmen except Hain and Yates.
So Mousley, Davies, Maxwell, Moeen, Bethell, Benjamin, Barnard. For all the hype, this supposedly star studded line up, averaged less than 2 players we deemed surplus to requirements. That’s a bit embarrassing if you’re Robinson.
Even worse when you consider they were playing in sides that are considered weaker.

Hose and Burgess played in previous seasons and previous quarter finals losses so what are you saying here averages aside? What are their strike rates like?

I think when you consider the international call ups we've had to contend with and then injuries I think it's been a great effort to make the quarter finals.

I'll make more comment on tonight's game later, my mind is scrambled!

We do have an unfortunate habit of losing at this stage!

Should we really be surprised? Every year. Why bother to finish top when it makes no difference. I always agreed with Neil Carter who thought sides finishing top should go straight to finals day but instead you have to play a side who scrape into 4th place and get to knock you out in a one-off game. but seriously, another poor batting display on a wicket where 180 looked good. Too many batsmen giving outfield catching practice and yet another overseas 'Star' who didn't shine, not one fifty to show all campaign. All the turning up, hoping for a place to park somewhere and watch us play well to get through and what I hoped would be a successful finals day only to see 4 other teams going to OUR ground to have their day in the sun.

Seems to make no difference whether we sneak into the QFs in 4th place or piss the group. Not sure the format is all that great for supporters of the individual counties. A 14 match group stage followed by a straight 1 match eliminator seems overblown. Certain counties seem to peak at the right time - usual suspects all still involved. I think smaller groups with fewer games would make it easier to swallow losing in the QF every season

And counties placing lots of emphasis on this format (guides recruitment etc...) seems misplaced and frankly silly. Sure the crowds are half decent but one bad game and it's all over for another ten months.

I wish we had a proper limited overs league May thru September to sink our teeth into as county supporters and also a proper knockout cup to dream about trips to the final

Andy wrote:

Hose and Burgess played in previous seasons and previous quarter finals losses so what are you saying here averages aside? What are their strike rates like?

I think when you consider the international call ups we've had to contend with and then injuries I think it's been a great effort to make the quarter finals.

I'll make more comment on tonight's game later, my mind is scrambled!

Just that we have a lot of players who are very inconsistent and seem to be getting by on reputation rather than performance. And in knock out matches inconsistency is what kills you.

In regards to international call ups, didn’t we all agree we were better without Moeen? Now we’re using it as an excuse. We never have Woakes, we have accepted that same as Durham don’t have Wood and Stokes. Worcestershire don’t have Tongue. Yorkshire don’t have Root, Bairstow and Brook. It’s part of the game.
Same with injuries, every side has them. We have one of the biggest squads, we should be able to deal with it.
We need to rethink a couple of places in that batting line up. Benjamin is probably the most vulnerable.

We do have deficiencies in the team/squad and the batting lineup has been too reliant on Hain, and then Yates. We need two more batsmen to be a top team (and Benjamin despite early promise is not of those). And winning the group did mask that.

However we did win the group and I agree with the above post that there should be an advantage. I'd have top playing second IPL style and loser playing winner of 3rd v 4th. Still have a finals day. Because it isn't fair we've finished top two last two years and not made two finals days.

That being said, Maxwell has been a compete failure and a waste of money, and Hassan Ali was a huge loss as predicted.

Although we've lost today and above posts have referenced it was comfortable for Essex, they had a hell of a lot of luck with the bat. I counted nearly double figures of genuine edges that went for four for them.

Yes, was pissed off with the edges they got compared to ours, a bit like the C & G final v Hampshire in 2005. The RL Cup despite it's detractors has a 'Top of the group goes straight into the semi's' scenario and the 2nd and 3rd in each group has to decide the other semi's. We should have enough talent to get to finals day but we choke on the day one way or another.

It's hard to look far beyond a loss of temperament on the big day for me. Can point to supposed inadequacies with the team but that got us to top place so it was good enough. I wonder if last year's thrashing played on our minds a bit. Another thing that occured to me: are we a long way behind the southern teams in white ball cricket? I've suddenly got memories of a whole stack of southern counties giving us limited overs kicking in recent years.

I don’t think there’s a big difference at all between the 2 groups. If you look at the Lancashire side for example, they’re stacked but could lose to a stacked Surrey team.
We should have had the talent to win that match. I think part of it is a mental issue. After so many failures at the same stage it starts to weigh on you.
But I think it’s also the type of batsman we have. We have players who have flashes of brilliance followed by 3 games of nothing. And that means the odds of them not performing in a one off game, are much higher than them coming off. This is survivable in the group stages, but bites hard in the knockouts, especially when other teams raise their game.

Feel really sorry for the players who had an excellent T20 season. I don't really have a problem with the format though especially as our one win came when we snuck into the quarters. I doubt we choked, short form cricket is very tight and a decent team can beat a good team fairly often. Maybe the 50 over competition this year.

paulbear wrote:

Should we really be surprised? Every year. Why bother to finish top when it makes no difference. I always agreed with Neil Carter who thought sides finishing top should go straight to finals day but instead you have to play a side who scrape into 4th place and get to knock you out in a one-off game. but seriously, another poor batting display on a wicket where 180 looked good. Too many batsmen giving outfield catching practice and yet another overseas 'Star' who didn't shine, not one fifty to show all campaign. All the turning up, hoping for a place to park somewhere and watch us play well to get through and what I hoped would be a successful finals day only to see 4 other teams going to OUR ground to have their day in the sun.

Completely agree with you PB (and Neil Carter), Group Winners should go straight to the Semi's and 2nds and 3rds in each Group should play off for the remaining two SF places.

Maxwell was another Overseas 'waste of space'. Benjamin should be nowhere near a place in the team (anyway we probably won't see him again for the 1sts this season). Davies is a crap keeper (what a miss that catch was!) - it should be Burgess. OHD is no T20 bowler.

The only players who showed ability last night were Sam and Jake, though Henry B did better than I expected.