Davies is really 'chancey' isn't he...

I'm talking about the determination to stay in, to put away the flashes outside off stump, the aimless waft at a leg side delivery, to say to the bowlers 'you're going to have to get me out here, I'm not giving it away'. I've not see a lot of that from some of our batters this season. If they get a jaffa then fair enough but if any of them get out to a brainless shot I'll be fuming.

A fairly useless 29 from 30 by Davies. Pinned lbw on the crease, no foot movement at all.

coolerking wrote:

I'm talking about the determination to stay in, to put away the flashes outside off stump, the aimless waft at a leg side delivery, to say to the bowlers 'you're going to have to get me out here, I'm not giving it away'. I've not see a lot of that from some of our batters this season. If they get a jaffa then fair enough but if any of them get out to a brainless shot I'll be fuming.

I agree, from this point on, there is nothing to gain by throwing the bat and hoping that because it looks a good strip to bat on, that this will be enough. I hope the batsmen are saying to themselves, "This is a good pitch to bat on and I will not have a better chance to score a ton with nothing for us to gain in terms of chasing runs or trying to get bonus points". Pity that no one told Davies who seems to play one way and yet took ages to get off the mark v Essex when we needed just over a hundred.

There surely has to be some changes for the next match, this line up is simply not delivering.

The players obviously have talent but the whole point of a squad is that players out of form can be rotated out.

I think/hope there will be and Norwell must surely play and a lot of talk before/during this game as to why he wasn't in this game as he was in the squad. Miles look uninspiring again and I am not sure what the batting line up should be as so many are not really in form, we can't possibly drop 3 so perhaps 1 might miss out.

It will be interesting to see how Jacob Bethell gets on tomorrow for Gloucestershire. He was batting beautifully this evening against Peter Siddle and Jack Leach and the live feed commentators were full of praise for him. He's only 17 not out at the moment but he looks to have so much time to play his shots and seems so assured at the crease. [OK - that probably ensures that he will be out first ball tomorrow but I hope not].

That is the problem with having a few talented but very young players. When do you give then their chance and even though you don't want them to go to another county, if you loan them out and they do well, that county might want to keep them. If that ends up being the case, you cannot blame a youngster if he sees a chance to play first team cricket and wants to move. I have heard a lot of good things about him from all sorts of people who have seen him and you get the feeling that if he was from India/Pakistan, he would get more of a chance.

18 years old, in his 2nd First Class game right now, has played 8 List A games, 3 T20's. Has a Hundred ball contract.

He'll finish this season having played a fair bit I reckon and he'll still only be 18, we ain't gotta rush him.

He's still doing his A Levels too.

Yes I agree that he has already had more opportunities than most 18-year olds.
I have already got him marked down as the Bears' "next captain but two".
He has been picked by Welsh Fire for The Hundred, which may benefit him financially. But I can't help thinking that he would be better playing for the Bears while The Hundred is on.

I feel Rob Yates will be Bears captain eventually.

No one would want to rush Bethell but at some point he will feel he is good enough to play in the first team if his record is good and he is not being picked, at what point does he feel frustrated enough to look elsewhere.

Well signing dodgy openers from Lancs won't be helping when it comes to making room for talented youngsters.

This is really not looking good. The white ball window might actually be coming at a good time for us. A chance to try and regroup.

We've made a decent fist of it today. Obviously it was a bit easier as the ball got older and the bowlers have nearly 90 overs in them but Sibley, Hain and Rhodes have really dug in. Good work.

Should be a draw from here. This is more or less the template of the last few years. A OK score batting relatively slowly does make us tough to beat though would have preferred a few more bonus points. With regard to selection, I don't really know what would improve things from here. Surely the point is a lot of decent bowlers are missing so we're down to the next best, drop any more and it's academy picks. I get the point with Bethell but all that does is make us stronger at 6/7/8 and adds another left arm spinner.

From a batting perspective it could be argued that even without changes in personnel the line up could change. Last year we regularly saw Rhodes and Yates open so there could be a shuffle to try and help batsmen find some form.

Great to see the character this afternoon though with Hain and Rhodes in particular.

I spoke to soon, pity for Rhodes to miss out on the century.

I know we're missing Woakes and Stone but they're not players you can plan a FC season around. We ought to have had a ready made plan to mitigate their expected absence; we shouldn't be just a Norwell injury away from fielding a substandard pace attack.

Very professional effort today from Sibley, Rhodes and Lamb. Epic from Sam Hain.