Yep, don't know what the umpire was playing at there, the moment he went to confer with the square leg umpire the batter knew he could get away with it.

He got hit on the head and spent time off the field.

Mousley, talented lad though he is, has some really soft dismissals.

Yeah bit surprised, particularly with a 230 lead. Guess they didn't want to leave any risk of Essex going in and making 400 and have Harmer spin us out on day 4, Chelmsford can break up a bit sometimes.

Just nice to see a bit of pace in our attack for once. It makes a difference. Rae looks legitimately rapid and Simmons is sharp and was right on the money from word go.

Rae looks quick

Blimey he'd be sweared out if he played half his games at Edgbaston.

There is an article from the Edgbaston site about him taking on the vice captaincy. Within this article is a picture of him at Taunton holding a cap with the white Bear on it. Article dated 4th April 2024. No idea how to link stuff on here.

I thought he was capped at Somerset away last year? I'm probably mistaken.

People wanted him dropped at one point last season, it was absolutely wild.

He always plays so responsibly, doesn't
do anything rash. Never gives it away.

His bowling won't always pose a threat on flat pitches but Ed Barnard is giving guaranteed runs week in week out at the moment.

Not sure how serious a red ball option Lintott actually is.

Good luck to Rae and Che. Interested in particular to see Simmons pace.

Difficult to predict the XI tomorrow. Really depend on conditions I suppose. Allinson and Beard being amongst Essex squad would suggest pitch will favour seam. Essex spinners would be playing regardless of the conditions due to their quality and batting ability (Critchley). Chance Rae and Simmons play? Rae and Briggs more likely?

Robinson mentioned in his interview post Surrey that Jamal was feeling his back. If they knew this, why on earth give him the new ball when Surrey only needed 89?

He's probably worth a punt. Lancashire signed Will Williams like this, he was playing club in the UK then signed for Lancs mid season, and he turned out to be a good pick up. This lad does indeed have a modest record though. It is very difficult to pick up decent overseas players at the moment to be fair, like we've all said.

I'd have probably given Liam Guthrie, currently playing in the 2's, a go instead. He has a bit more pedigree, come through an extremely strong WA pathway in Aus and took a 6fer for QLD in the Sheffield Shield only a couple of months ago, he's also a left armer who i know definitely bowls high 80's.

Rae looks like a Gavin Larsen signing.

Didn't know this about Zaman Akhtar, we are becoming an increasingly odd run club though, who seems to miss out on talent right under our noses quite a lot.

I wish Michael Rae well though, hope he's quick, we're crying out for a bit of pace. Jamal looks like a bit of a trundler let's be honest.

Guthrie is rapid.

OK, we essentially released Olly Stone at the end of the 2022 season, yes he was injury prone (overall record suggests he played a little more than people remember, he was never like Norwell is now), but he didn't need to play every game to have a positive impact on the season.

Craig Miles in 2022 played 7 red ball games and took 11 wickets at an average of 63 (imagine the reaction if Brookes turned in figures that bad?!) and got given a 3 year contract.

We rewarded garbage and released quality.

Squad management has been poor for ages now.

Re. Recruitment. We've no margin for error here because we don't have a steady, sustainable pipeline of seamers coming through the pathway to back up the 1st team squad. The cupboard has never been so bare in that regard. Means that everytime we sign a bowler we need them to hit the ground running. An almost impossible expectation, recruitment is so tricky

Also, Norwell this Norwell that etc, it's been so long now since he played any cricket its almost impossible to say whether he'd be any good or not at this point.

Underperforming academy too re. bowlers.

Truth is we've relied so heavily on recruitment for seam bowlers for such a long time now because we've had such a lack of seam bowling talent coming through our own pathway. And recruiting from other counties and overseas is so tricky, sometimes we've got it right, sometimes we've got it wrong.

Craig Miles, don't mean to pick on him, he's bowled ever so well on day 2 at the Oval but goodness me he's had some poor games for us and he's definitely had plenty of chances. Into his 6th season with us now, doubt a locally developed academy lad would have been given such an amount of opportunity.

Bowling coach situation hasn't helped either. That was such a huge blow when Pop Welch left, just look at what he did with OHD. Imagine what he might have done with Brookes, Garrett or Johal?

I maintain it was weird that we let Brookes, Garrett and Johal all walk during the same off season with the majority of our other seamers being over (well over) 30 years old. Not saying any of those 3 would have made a difference here but were looking rather short pretty quickly at the moment...

Re. squad make up. Olly Stone should still be here, even if he only plays 4 or 5 red ball games a season our chances of winning 2 or 3 of those games increase immeasurably because of him. We're crying out for somebody with a bit of pace (is Che Simmons worth a look here?). We let him walk because we only offered him a white ball only deal.

Talking of recruitment and white ball only Moeen Ali, Garton and Gleeson will all be on serious money. Money that i don't think would be sanctioned on the 4day side somehow. Since start of 2022 the messaging from the club has been clear: Blast is priority.

Comes back to the naked truth though that we don't have any seamers coming through the academy to bolster the squad. Most other counties have homegrown seamer(s) in there XI, were always scratching around and trying to poach from other counties. Would imagine we'll be bringing in somebody on loan this week...