Massively disappointed after yesterday, whilst we fought back hard at the end with some tight bowling there really was a sense of deflation from the crowd after their powerplay was so much better than ours.

Whilst it would be wrong to blame a single player I can’t help but feel Maxwell was a big disappointment. When a marquee overseas player is signed one would expect at least one match winning/defining performance but he just didn’t deliver. Whilst he was far from awful…he was in fact mainly ordinary.

We did lack the consistent batting unit throughout the tournament but the recruitment was not necessarily to blame for that. In signing Maxwell and Ali they just have thought they would be getting experienced players who would not only contribute with individual performances but also acting as a calming/supportive influence on their colleagues. Again, it just didn’t work out that way.

I liked what I saw from Drakes, maybe worth looking at for next year. Benjamin really has struggled this season, yesterday he just couldn’t time his shots. I wonder what the future holds for him, I think he is in the middle of a long contract so perhaps a loan move after the 16.9 to another county for some red ball games?

Bethell and Mousley will have greatly benefited from this years tournament and hopefully will take these experiences forward.

We simply need to tie down Sam Hain to a massively long contract, without him we are nowhere!

Benjamin strikes me as one of those players who burst onto the scene and was great whilst people didn’t really know him. But now there’s lots of video on him, with teams doing lots of video analysis now, he’s clearly struggled a lot more.
He’s great on a flat deck, with the ball coming on nicely, not moving in the air (who isn’t), but if it’s tricky he just isn’t the guy in red or white ball.

I agree with most of what others have said.
The Bears innings was as slow to get going as the traffic queue leaving Cannon Hill Park last night.
The loss of Danny Briggs shouldn't be underestimated - he is as good at strangling the batting in mid-innings as Jeetan Patel used to be.
For what it's worth, my report on the match is here:
https://deepextracover.com/2023/07/vitality-blast-quarter-final-bears-v-essex-eagles-edgbaston-stadium/

My main beef with quarter finals is that the one-a-day format means that there is a week in high season when most county grounds are just left idle. If you have to have QFs, at least play them on the same day and leave room for another CC round.

Very dissapointing, felt like not enough experience heads in the side and with OHD bowling the last over it demonstrates a lack of depth

H Brookes..Benjamin and Maxwell were very dissapointing and we are far too reliant on Hain

Group stage seems bit pointless when the top side after 14 games doesn't get to Finals day.

UrsaMinor wrote:

My main beef with quarter finals is that the one-a-day format means that there is a week in high season when most county grounds are just left idle. If you have to have QFs, at least play them on the same day and leave room for another CC round.

I think Sky might have something to say about that idea!!

Is a marquee signing that important in the format? Especially considering you only have to finish 4th out of 9 to qualify for the QFs and then it's a bit of a lottery. Away QF might suit Bears better. I think I'd rather play more or less the Royal London squad in the T20 Blast and use it as a development comp from now on. I'm not even sure it would have that much of an effect on the crowds - we'd still get 15k versus Worcester and 10k in a couple of the other group matches/if we had a home QF. Use the money saved in that area to recruit top all round championship and one day players that can play all season

BristolBear wrote:

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.

Most of those are expected international call-ups though, which you can plan for. I don’t think the impact of Hassan’s unexpected call-up can be overstated. I think without that, we make finals day. Our pace bowling attack has definitely been our weakness this season and needs to be addressed.

Ultimately, as others have said, we have been shafted by the format of the competition where you could win 14 out of 15 games and not make it to finals day. I know that we benefitted from this in 2014, but that doesn’t mean that it shouldn’t change.

Looks like an all-South Group Finals Day.

Mood not helped by seeing Dan Lawrence substituting at Headingley today, some Yorkshire rookie yesterday, allowing him to play last night. It stinks.

Coop wrote:

Mood not helped by seeing Dan Lawrence substituting at Headingley today, some Yorkshire rookie yesterday, allowing him to play last night. It stinks.
Not sure what the problem is here - Dan Lawrence doesn't (I think) have a central contract so Essex are his employer.

The issue is that if he was needed by England today, then he should have been needed yesterday as well. It’s also the inconsistency - we all know that if it was the other way round and Woakes wasn’t playing for England, that he wouldn’t have been able to play for us. I know woakes has a central contract, but that shouldn’t make a difference in this situation really.

Ah, didn't realise that, fair enough. Just so disappointed.... again.

The whole thing is so inconsistent and I can understand anyone's disappointment seeing as Lawrence had a big impact on the game itself. The whole business of England players playing for their counties is not something that the ECB actually care about as they appear not to give a shit about anything that concerns the counties. Regardless of whether players are centrally contracted, the ECB are just happy if they get all THEIR players in the squad but have no problem with them getting little cricket and carrying drinks.

I thought the point of central contracts was that it gave the England set-up control over the contracted players ahead of the counties. That's why centrally contracted players only get to play for their counties when released by England.
Dan Lawrence and Chris Woakes differ not just in that Woakes is centrally contracted and Lawrence isn't but also in that Woakes is a bowler carrying a long term knee injury and Lawrence is a fit (as far as I know) batter. That is bound to produce different outcomes.
I agree that, in making decisions about whether or not to rel4ease a player to a county, the prime consideration is what is thought to be good for the England team, not the county or the player. What I don't think, however, is that there is a secret plot specifically against the Bears.

No one said there was a plot of any sort but central contracts were to stop players bowling 40 overs in a Test in Manchester and then getting in a car to drive up to The Oval for a cup game the very next day. The fixtures need to change to keep in line with this and CC needs to be played during Tests so that any player who is called up, has some sort of form going into the longest format games, Woakes has only played a few T20 games before this Test but then again, fixtures are for another argument altogether. Central contracts affect batsmen as much, the lack of CC for Test players before a home series in poor, you could hold back a player for the first 2 CC games and say he can play in 2 nearer the first Test and if they are rain ruined, you have a player with no real practice of any sort going into an important series.

Cynically one might suggest they don't want county championship games on during test matches because it might affect ticket sales for the test matches.

I hope you're right though and next year because there are two tests in August fingers crossed there'll be at least two rounds of Championship Cricket too in August, ideally three

I think my mention of a plot against the Bears was just me dealing with my own paranoid fears - as Joseph Heller said in Catch-22, “Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean they aren't after you.”

Some good points on this thread.

Worth pointing out that both of the other white ball comps offer automatic qualification to semi-final/final to the group winner with play-offs between 2nd and 3rd.

Given that Sky now only broadcast 2 Q/Fs from the Blast what would be lost other than 1 qualification spot from a group of 9?

Not sour grapes but it does seem perverse that a successful campaign that puts you top by a stretch can be derailed by one sketchy performance.

The 4 going through in each group is just a deliberate ploy to have more teams still having something to play for in the latter group stages. See also football play offs.