Davies, Yates, Benjamin and Mousley have all benefitted from selection when their performances have not justified their place in the side.
Davies, Yates, Benjamin and Mousley have all benefitted from selection when their performances have not justified their place in the side.
Inept and just completely incompetent. So glad I did not waste petrol money on that performance. Kent must be wondering why they batted on so long and any rain about didn't deserve to get us out of that. If a meeting isn't held by the management after this then they deserve to just pack their bags and go.
I don't see anyone else around the squad, particularly batters, who is going to come in and make a massive difference. Something new has to be tried but we've seen all the other options before.
Just read that Andy Umeed, who we discared has signed a contract with Somerset.
For the next game, Lamb has to return to the side, I'd be tempted to give Ethan Brookes and Jacob Bethell a chance in place of Davies and Mousley, with Chris Benjamin dropping down to 6.
What a difference from September 2021. Champions and looking to dominate for a few years......and now? Probable relegation. A disgrace.
I never thought we'd dominate for the next few years, there's quite often a drop off after a Championship title win, but I didn't think we'd be like this. I had us down for 5/6 before a bit of a bounce back to challenge again in 2023.
I suspect I have the opposite view to most, and the batting will get the criticism. But actually if you look at where that game was lost, it was the bowling.
3 of the 4 innings were below 230. 2 of them below 200. It was clearly a pitch offering a bit to the bowlers. In the fourth innings, damp overcast conditions, they got the ball to do a bit, they used the conditions well. Whereas in the same situation in Kent second innings our bowlers let them escape from 100-4 to 380 declared. They knew this was a tough wicket. Only 2 of their batsmen got in. We can say Saini and Quinn didn’t look special, but compared to Miles, Brookes and Rhodes they looked like the Starc and Cummins.
It’s easy to blame the batsmen. But we’ve got 3 players averaging near enough 50 or more. Sibley has contributed at times too. But if other teams are scoring 100-200 runs more than they should then of course the batting will look bad in comparison. What’s even more damning is that not only is the bowling lacking any threat, it’s expensive for a lot of the time, it doesn’t build pressure. Shown by how sides score much faster than us, despite having players like Hain, Burgess, Lamb, Mousley, who all bat at a decent strike rate.
Yes Davies needs to go, and we need a first or second wicket partnership of 100 once or twice to just to build a base, and the batting needs to stop relying on Hain and Burgess. Could you imagine if Hain, Lamb and Burgess came in with 150-250 for 2 on the board instead of 100-5.
But if teams keep scoring more because the bowlers allow them too, then the batting will always be insufficient.
I think too many of our senior bowlers are injured. Not a single appearance from Woakes or Stone. Norwell has barely played through one injury after another. Apart from last season, Norwell has missed an awful lot of games since he joined from Gloucester. Oh for a Jeetan Patel! I also think losing Welch and Bresnan had had a big impact. Matt Mason doesn't impress me as bowling coach either.
I actually believe that we have some fine players and when mindset and application is right we bat genuinely deep but mindset and application is most definitely not right. What a very fine prospect Yeats looked last year and yet he is quickly set aside whilst Davies seems bulletproof, despite suicidal dismissal after suicidal dismissal. Sibley is Sibley and at very least should be the glue to many of our innings, Hain is a very fine batsman and yet seems to bat strangely at times? In the nineties yesterday and refusing singles, what was that all about. Lamb, Mousley, Benjamin, Burgess even Henry Brooks all should be offering valuable contributions as should Rhodes, why are we not using Hose? It's our apparent lack of purpose, urgency, application and desire that concerns me. The Bears have just scored over 200 in 20 overs 6/7 times this season and yet we struggle to get past two an over in the four day game. Something is a long way from right in our dressing room and in our coaching and management set up.
I actually believe that we have some fine players and when mindset and application is right we bat genuinely deep but mindset and application is most definitely not right. What a very fine prospect Yeats looked last year and yet he is quickly set aside whilst Davies seems bulletproof, despite suicidal dismissal after suicidal dismissal. Sibley is Sibley and at very least should be the glue to many of our innings, Hain is a very fine batsman and yet seems to bat strangely at times? In the nineties yesterday and refusing singles, what was that all about. Lamb, Mousley, Benjamin, Burgess even Henry Brooks all should be offering valuable contributions as should Rhodes, why are we not using Hose? It's our apparent lack of purpose, urgency, application and desire that concerns me. The Bears have just scored over 200 in 20 overs 6/7 times this season and yet we struggle to get past two an over in the four day game. Something is a long way from right in our dressing room and in our coaching and management set up.
The current championship averages
This shows why Yates was dropped, the question should be why was he allowed to stay in the side so long?
7 games 11 innings 141 runs average below 13, take away his one decent innings of 55 and the average is below 9, that is not acceptable for a specialist batsman.
About 40 mins after the game finished there was a very long conversation in the middle between Farbrace and Gary Barwell. I’m not suggesting it was acrimonious, but I do hope the groundstaff aren’t being made scapegoats. They were obviously asked to produce ‘a result wicket’ and they did.
The difference between the 2 sides? Overseas players? Our injury list? Confidence? Is the dressing room happy? If I was Farbrace I’d be asking a lot of people questions - starting with Robinson.
Team for Surrey?
Sibley
Yates
Rhodes
Hain
Hose
Lamb
Burgess
Stone
Norwell
Pandya
OHD
If I was Farbrace I’d be asking myself a lot of questions first. I’m struggling to think of many signings he has made that have had a truly positive influence on our club.
Hose has always failed in red ball cricket and has done nothing this season in red ball 2nd team games to justify a recall.
Also, how can you justify recalling Yate? The figures show he is not worth a first team place this season.
I’m always loathe to join in with knee-jerk defenestration debates. Primarily the reason I prefer this forum to the Wild West of social media is that here we can always have a reasoned debate.
For that reason I’ve held back on my twopenn’orth for the bulk of the season but having watched the 1st 2 days live and the rest on the stream I think it’s time.
Tend to agree with the BristolBear posting above. To win CC games you have to be able to take 20 wickets at reasonable cost. It was manifestly obvious before a ball had been bowled this season that this was going to be beyond us. Bresnan was a significant loss. The argument that we are “unexpectedly” missing Woakes, Norwell and Stone simply does not bear scrutiny. Chris Woakes has been centrally-contracted and/or playing IPL since 2015. Liam Norwell, whilst very effective, is extremely injury-prone and is unlikely to ever play more than 50% of scheduled matches. OIly Stone is a brilliant rarity - a 90mph bowler with great control. But sadly he’s held together with string and even when he has a sustained period of playing seems to be pretty unlucky - see today’s announcement of an impact finger injury that’s probably going to keep him out for the rest of the season. Realistically in 6 seasons with us it was only the promotion season in 2018 where he was a significant presence.
OHD has been brilliant again - a bowler that has wrung every last ounce of ability from his talents. He manages to be a threat whilst retaining control of runs. But he has lacked any proper support from the other end. McAndrew has tried his best but has not been able to find the right length in English conditions. Henry Brooks is a shadow of the player that took 2 wickets on debut in his first over. Quick still but with little control - a 4 ball nearly every over. Craig Miles - apart from a decent return back end of last season - looks little more than a CCD2 change bowler. George Garrett seems to offer little threat and Danny Briggs looks completely lost. Even golden arm Rhodes has lost his mojo.
In essence we have a 1 man attack which means sides pile on runs against us at a rapid rate putting the batting line-up under pressure every time. I agree that there are certain batters who seem to be leading a charmed life under the current coaching regime but I think their mindset is probably being scrambled by the pressure they find themselves under game after game when faced with huge totals and deficits conceded by our attack.
It beggars belief that a lack of planning, recruitment and clear-eyed coaching has led us to this a year after we became champions. I suspect we’re going to go down to an even heavier defeat next week at the Oval then will need 2 wins from 3 to stay in the division. When performances and morale are this low - in whatever sport you care to mention - achieving that is almost impossible. Hope I’m proved wrong and I’ll be the first back on 1st October with a mea culpa if I am!
I think the overseas recruitment since Jeets retired has been poor. We need a much higher calibre of player. Obviously there's the conundrum of possible international call ups during the season. However, take Glamorgan for instance, they've managed to recruit Aussie Marnus Labuschagne for a number of seasons now. We should be aiming at that level of player.
In fairness I think the club were caught rather off-guard by the sudden retirement of Bresnan. We were obviously expecting to get another year out of him, and the fairly late decision meant that it was a bit late to try to find a decent replacement. We have certainly missed his charisma and determination this season.
That being said, things have still been particularly poor this season. The worst thing is that people will now think that last season's title was just a fluke. I'm sure the shorter league format did play into our hands a bit, and perhaps some of our players were playing above their ability, but we still deserved it.
The point about having a proper opening partnership is a good one. I saw a lot of Derbyshire last season and they were terrible - much worse than we are now. I think they had one 100+ partnership the entire season and their middle order was consistently coming in at 15-2. In the close season they brought in Mickey Arthur, who brought in Shan Masood, and this season Derbs' fortunes have massively improved. Masood has been immense so rather than coming in against a new ball and fresh bowlers, the likes of Guest, Du Plooy, Madsen etc have been coming in against a soft ball and tired bowlers. Those three have got 9 hundreds between them.
Interesting point made about Farbrace’s recruitment.
Who was his best signing? Burgess, Bresnan, Briggs? Of those 3, only Burgess can be said to have been genuine success. He seems to have seamlessly replaced Ambrose, which many thought impossible. Briggs has been good but not when compared to Jeetan, and Bresnan was too short lived.
But Davies and Benjamin, are yet to deliver. And then you look at the domestic signings made by other teams and you wonder why the club didn’t attempt something similar.
In terms of overseas signed by Farbrace, I thought Chris Green was really good when he played in the T20. All the others have ranged from poor to abysmal.