Blast Off for a comp that started 2 days ago!

Daft, isn’t it?

With the Bears having had to travel back from Durham late last night, it's a bit like the bride turning up late and hung over for her wedding after a night out with the best man.

This one is on Sky

GerryShedd wrote:

With the Bears having had to travel back from Durham late last night, it's a bit like the bride turning up late and hung over for her wedding after a night out with the best man.

There speaks a man from experience!!!!!!!!

Do you mean after the durum, durum it's now time to tie the Notts???????? Sorry

You could be right!
Just parked my car next to two blokes who are putting on nun’s clothes. Either they are going to the cricket or there’s something very dodgy going on.

Both

I suppose with it being on Sky it won't be streamed!

Jamal added to the squad

We’ve won the toss and bat first. Same team.

Powerful start now we need a steady partnership to build a good score

With no boundaries in the last 4 overs I feel we are well short. Hope I am wrong

It doesn’t look too good at this stage

LeicesterExile wrote:

With no boundaries in the last 4 overs I feel we are well short. Hope I am wrong

Well there are times when I love being proved wrong. Following on Crickinfo that was some performance.

The batting still looks fragile to me, but the bowling line up is working really well so far. I hope Hassan isn’t injured though, he looked in quite some discomfort at the end there.

Fantastic win, I thought we were dead and buried 5 overs into their innings, that bowling unit is very effective. It wasn't just Hassan that pulled up, Gleeson pulled up too! If they're both out the bowling unit suddenly looks a lot weaker.

Also credit to Davies behind the stumps who I thought had an excellent game as keeper, and as captain.

But as said above the batting looks very fragile still. Yates and Hain you can rely on to get scores regularly. The rest play stupid shots far too regularly. Burgess in for Benjamin for me.

Mousley is frustrating cause he clearly has the talent and has made good scores in the past but he's well over a season now out of form. Bethell I think we give a little more time and if he doesn't make any scores bring Barnard in.

If the batting can match the bowling we'll be a seriously dangerous side. If it doesn't we'll end up in a similar position, or worse, to last two seasons.

Interesting that Garton and Gleeson both look crock. That's a winter of recruitment burnt up if they're both injured. Interesting point on Mousley. I think he's clearly got the ability to be a destructive bat in this tournament but seems the club are giving him more and more to do with the ball. That must be affecting his batting - he's still young.

Showed some character tonight. Fielded brilliantly. Yates is extremely underrated in this format and is starting to become a bit of a talisman for us. Yes Mousley is getting out poorly time and again, bowling carries threat in this format though. Doesn't really get any turn but quicker ball is a great delivery. You felt the tide turning when Hales got out and crowd got up. Lintott and Briggs have been excellent the past 2 nights, Lintott is getting decent turn. Gleeson is legitimately rapid, no question. Benjamin looking like a bit of an odd man out, no runs and a bit of a passenger in the field.

The bowling is just superb. But if the batting doesn’t improve it’ll be the same story as last year.
Benjamins performances seem to have gotten worse each season. Think he was unknown his first year, now there’s plenty of video and people know how to bowl at him. He can’t rotate the strike. It’s boundaries or nothing. Unfortunately unless something changes, it seems second team might be his level.
As good as his fielding is, think Bethell is a bit of a passenger too, doesn’t bowl like Mousley in this format.
The batting is way too fragile. I’d bring Burgess and Barnard in for Bethell and Benjamin. Get a top quality keeper and another bowling option.
Barnard has gone from strength to strength since last season, and Burgess outperformed almost all our batters but Hain and Yates whilst he was on loan at Sussex (in a group that turned out to be much stronger last year).

Burgess being left out is pretty understandable. In his Blast career he has averaged 18 at about 120 runs per hundred balls. Chris Benjamin is averaging 27 at 150. The management is judging that Burgess' keeping doesn't make up for his batting and that seems a pretty solid judgement imo. 2 wins from two I'm quite happy with the start although suspect we have played two of the weaker teams.