I know I’ve said it before, but feel that Johal performed well on his rare opportunities, like at the end of the 2021 season. Never saw him again in the first class team after that BWT match.
I don’t know whether they decided because of his performances in the second XI that he wouldn’t be given more chances. Or if they simply thought he lacked the raw ability like pace or movement to succeed higher up.
Think Garrett just wasted too many chances over the years, but he got 2 more years than Johal did.

I don’t know if this is just Warwickshire or if it’s something around all the counties and the game in this country in general now. But I think what we’re discovering is that it seems to take a much longer time now for players to break through.
Maybe it’s just that there’s more visibility on academies and second elevens now. But from players first appearing on the radar to them becoming viable regular first team options seems to take much longer now. Mousley is a good example, Bethell too.

Can’t say I’m disappointed about no hotel. Too many grounds being ruined by things like this, or losing what makes them unique.

I don’t know if it’s just me, but across the counties the list of released players seems less impressive than a few years ago.
I mean we signed Chris Rushworth as a free agent last off season. There’s no one who’s even close to that this year. And he was an outlier, based on the talent that gets to free agency in recent years.
Looks like it’s becoming more and more like football where players are signed whilst still on contract, and good players never make it to free agency.

Looking around, Godleman and Ball are by far the best players and both have very obvious issues in terms of age and injury history.

Will admit to not being a fan of how the MVP is calculated. It removes the circumstances, meaning a century against a top attack, on a tough deck, to win the match, is the same as a century on a flat deck, against a poor attack in a match that’s always going to be a draw. Cheapens genuine achievements and promotes stat padding.

That being said, Dawson has been excellent this year. With bat and ball. He seems to be turning it a lot more now than in previous years. Which might explain why teams have struggled against him, expecting non-turning darts as has been his speciality for years, and instead getting genuine movement seems to have taken many by surprise.

“Personal reasons”.

I wonder if the repeated volleys of abuse Sussex launched at Leicestershire might have something to do with that.
Or if he realised Leicestershire weren’t in as bad a place as he thought when he chose to leave earlier in the season.

Problem with Yates is it’s either feast or famine.
He doesn’t get a 30 or 40, and see off the new ball.
If he doesn’t get a decent score it’s typically single figures in 3 or 4 overs. He hasn’t quite mastered the battling part of opening, protecting the middle order.
He’s been the best of the top 3, but the top 3 hasn’t looked good for most of the season. Until recently Rhodes has been poor, Davies has been really poor other than that first match. Too often they all fail.

Have just been told by someone within the club that the players end of season bonus will be roughly a couple grand more each for finishing 3rd instead of 4th.

So I was totally wrong about it not being motivation. That’ll definitely get a few of them pushing harder on the last day.

I think the players care about finishing as high as they can, but it’s not a motivating factor if that makes sense.
You don’t give pre-match speeches about finishing 3rd typically. It’s not something that will be putting pressure on them like previous last matches of the season. If we get third here you won’t see huge hugs and players charging around.

When it was announced before the 3rd ODI it only mentioned sides in must win matches like Surrey and Kent.
But Lancs have brought Hartley back in, and they’re basically guaranteed 5th.
Not sure there’s much to gain for us, let Hain start his holidays early. Think his parents had flown over to watch him in his international debut, so maybe he can spend some time with them.

He must have one hell of an agent. Considering he’s been poor in the blast and hundred for 2 years it’s a great deal for him. I wonder if he counts as a South African domestic player, and that’s helped his cause.

Davies getting more luck in this one innings than some players get all season. Won’t complain though, about time some luck went our way.

ajones1328 wrote:

Some really positive batting from the tail enders, Wagner was very impressive. Always been a fan of his, would like him as our overseas for next year.

Not sure the bowling was that bad, notice we are a very quiet side, bit of pumping each other up might have kept the momentum going.

I think the quietness has more to do with the fact that realistically there’s nothing on the line for either side. Hard to get up for a game where it’s cold and damp, you expect it to be a rain effected draw, and you’ve nothing to gain from it. To the players third, fourth or fifth makes very little difference.
Seen them noisy as a group before, but typically when they’re still challenging for something.

Do think we’ve bowled well though. Some good balls keeping up pressure, aided by 2 shocking leaves.

I do believe sometimes teams get caught up in thinking too much about hypotheticals, potential scenarios, and the forecast. Instead of just deciding to do the obvious best thing in terms of the current weather and state of the pitch.

They clearly never learn, the drainage issue at the start of this season was caused by work they carried out too late last year.
A Somerset friend of mine said they dug up part of the outfield, but took too long or did it too late, so when they relaid the turf and sowed the grass seed, the grass didn’t take and grow properly. And that’s why it was so sandy and drainage so poor in that specific part of the field for our match at the start of the year.

One thing that was abundantly clear from that match is that Eoin Morgan does not like Hain.
No idea why, because his supposed issue of “starting slowly” left him with a higher strike rate than Jacks. And never stopped Morgan picking Livingston or Root, who both have a history of chewing up balls early on. Wonder if it’s more personal than performance.

I think we’re going to get stopped by the weather. Though maybe not if we get this last one quickly.

Goes both ways though, we got robbed by the rain and drainage at Somerset, but saved against Lancashire.

The problem is, we’ve seen other players hired off the back of 1 or 2 good performances in the seconds, or who have done well in second team cricket and not made the leap. Just look at Chris Benjamin, Johal, Ethan Brookes.
Also the time of year means the bowling attacks in second XI cricket are very light. Clubs dealing with injuries after a long season, 2 squads worth of England call ups, retirements, plus you’ll have older players already hanging it up for the season and being told they don’t need to play.

Suspect it’s a case of just getting the batting points because unless the track completely changes overnight, a draw looks the only likely result. So get as many points as possible.

Can’t see us bowling them out currently for a total we could chase. And they won’t risk losing whilst Kent are doing poorly. So for them to get enough runs to threaten declaring they’d need to bat too long for it to be possible to bowl us out on a pitch only getting better for batting.