I think things have been wrong all season, right from last winter, even after a season of such success. But I think it’s far more to do with behind the scenes and management than the actual players.
Performance isn’t just about talent, it’s about environment. And for whatever reason this year the environment clearly hasn’t been conducive to players performing well.
Some interesting acquisitions were made, both domestic and overseas, who have been poor or underwhelming across all formats.
Pop Welch leaving as he couldn’t work with Robinson.
Some big players are leaving: Stone, Hose, Sibley. Others are clearly being frozen out like Lamb. Players like Johal have faltered massively.
And actually a lot of this group has been together a long time, and despite it being professional sport, they will have strong friendships, so to see it clearly being dismantled after a very good season can only be negatively effecting them.

Considering the club said Siraj was unavailable for personal reasons, I’m assuming that they’d have said the same for Burgess if it was personal. I think same as Lamb, they’ve taken their first chance to drop him. Which again can only cause issues amongst a team, as both it seems that both Lamb and Burgess are very popular in that group.

Time will tell with this match, but if I were to point the finger anywhere for this season it would be Robinson and Farbrace.

Singh-Dale looks very poor. Either very average balls or rubbish.
I thought the Saini issue was that he seem to either bowl filth or unplayable deliveries. There was no inbetween. Batsmen had no idea whether they were getting a long hop or a Jaffa.

Highveld wrote:

Perhaps Hain and Rhodes are having to bat defensively to try and rebuild the innings from the abysmal start that the early dismissals of Yates and Davies cause everytime?

That’s why they do it, absolutely. But there’s rebuilding and then there’s 10 off 74 balls. You can reduce the risk and still rotate the strike. The other issue is, when they do rebuild they struggle to pick the pace up again.
It’s hardly the biggest problem, compared to Davies and Yates. But it’s also not a match winning resolution.

I can’t tell if the balls doing more than you’d expect, or if our batsmen have just lost the plot.
Davies, Yates and Rhodes dismissals were all very poor.
At least the one that got Hain seems to have turned and bounced.
But also Hain seems to have gotten into this pattern of dropping the anchor and batting at glacial speed. It just causes more problems as the pressure just builds until the inevitable good ball, but the slips and catchers can all stay in, so just let’s the fielding team stay attacking with no risk of leaking runs.

And do tell me what Bethell, Mousley and Yates are all averaging this year?

The basis of professional sport is that players are paid to perform. Of Lamb and those other 3, only Lamb has so far done that this year. So whilst you keep and persevere with players based on potential, you also have to recognise it is about results and performance. Those 3 may have more natural talent, but if they can’t score more runs than Lamb then it counts for nothing.

Lamb is just a fly in the ointment. Second highest average but deliberately left out in the cold. Bizarre how players who were the reason we won the championship are being discarded or allowed to leave.
Whilst unproven and non performing players are repeatedly picked and rewarded.

paulbear wrote:

I would doubt Burgess has been dropped, it must be an injury of sorts. Surely after some of the strangest teams we have seen picked this season, the selection committee cannot surely do something more to piss us all off.

Says “unavailable”. So you’d assume if injured they’d just say injured. I wonder if it’s just a way to try pretend he hasn’t been dropped.

Lamb and Burgess were a real awkward fact for Robinson this year because it was clear he wanted to play Davies and Bethell, but they outperformed everyone not named Hain. We saw it with Lamb, first bad game and gone. I suspect it’s the same for Burgess. Which if accurate is the worst management style you could have, doesn’t matter how well you do and how many runs you score, the coach will pick someone they like instead even if not as good.

If Burgess has been dropped that’s absurd. 1 bad game all season. Part of which was an awful decision.

What it also shows is perhaps some of the things we might have attributed to Farbrace like the insistence on playing Davies and dropping Lamb are Robinson decisions.

The thing for me with umpires errors is the approach taken by domestic umpires seems wrong.
I know when I was coming through and playing, the mantra was always that the benefit of the doubt goes to the batsman, and you have to be 100% certain to give it.
The DRS era has done away with that, as umpires are feeling braver to make decisions. But in county cricket there is no DRS, and umpires are not as good as those on the elite international panel. So they’re employing the same mentality of being 90-95% sure it’s out, but without the top level ability, but also without fear of being overturned.
So you get bravery to give the very marginal calls out, there’s no way to learn from it because no DRS and it’s becoming far more obvious because streaming replays can not only show some decisions were wrong, but it highlights the regularity of the howlers.
It also doesn’t help there seems to be an increase recently in penalty points for players dissenting, so players feel punished twice not only did they get a poor decision but they get fined and the team gets disciplinary points. I know it’s a pillar of our sport to always respect the umpire. But it’s professional sport, it means something as a club but it’s players careers too.

Just seen the Burgess dismissal replay. We’ve had some stinkers this year. Hits it and it’s high. He clearly couldn’t believe it.
It’s not quite as bad as Hains caught behind or Burgess’ LBW at Surrey but it’s up there.
You look at that one given and the Gregory one not given in the first innings and wonder how that’s possible, and also wonder could the match have been very different potentially.
The more you watch and see dismissals like that, the more you see why Lancashire put out the statement they did. Umpires in theory have accountability, but the dearth of numbers means they can’t truly be dropped from the panel. And so there’s no true incentive to improve standards.

I don’t know about time. But I suspect it’ll be irrelevant as it’s a minimum 30 overs left. And you suspect Somerset will ensure that’s the maximum there’ll be as well.

LeicesterExile wrote:

In fairness at that stage there was just the possibility of getting the runs so going for boundaries was displaying a positive attitude. With 3 down though caution is what is now required.

I think they could still go for it. But it’s made much harder by Sibley and Davies getting out and going for it too early.

I’d think of it like this. If they continued as they were. Get to tea, as is now. 200 off 35 overs.
Bat at 4 an over for 15 overs, and suddenly it’s 140 needed off 20 with 9 wickets in hand, a tired attack with 2 set batsmen, and 5 recognised batsmen still to come.
Then you can go for it, and if you lose a few wickets you can decide at 5 down, let’s block out now, and there’s only 10-15 overs to see out.
Whereas now, lose a quick couple after tea, you’re 5 down with 30 overs to go.

Those Sibley and Davies dismissals were so ridiculously infuriating. Done all the hard work. Just keep batting, take up time ….. instead they try smash it to the boundary.

He’s looked solid with the bat so far. But the fact Davies always seems to set off on a run every ball, and Sibley having to scream no, is giving me palpitations.

Nowhere else for him to go this time.

I also think he’d be good as his experience with the ECB and Strauss would mean he’d be much less likely to go along with ECB nonsense. And as a true bear, he’d have the best interests of the county at heart.

Don’t think a draw is awful for us. Draw here and beat Glos and I suspect that might be safety because Kent have got to play Hampshire and Somerset.
A loss could be terminal.

Sounds an odd one to say but I think our run rate has been really self defeating here. And not for the first time this season either.
We get a partnership or 2, but the set batsmen bat so slowly, that even though they’re in for some time, the score doesn’t progress enough to really effect the match.
Hain and Rhodes have been really bad at this, getting stuck in rebuild mode and being unable to speed up later on.

Lamb and Burgess have mitigated this often, but with one dropped and the other getting out early, they can’t.
You end up just keeping the other team in the match, like today, we’ve batted almost 20 overs more than them, but Somerset would always have felt in the match. Either a really poor tactic, or poor skills by the top order.

One thing I will say about umpires, and something Chilton got correct, is that there is no accountability. They have a poor match like Taylor at Surrey, and he’s still doing it next week, no issues.
At least players can get dropped.
The other thing is, a player can’t influence an umpires career. A couple of bad decisions and umpires can have a potentially huge effect on a players career.

Interestingly in this game, there appears to be a test going on with ball tracking in county cricket.

On the link below there’s a video package of balls being tracked for a test.
https://live.nvplay.com/ecb/#md18d8240-61bf-4201-a345-ee070f634b62
Very timely considering Lancashires statement today about the standard of umpiring currently.

What was Davies doing??? Trying a drive outside the off stump?
Not great from Yates but at least it wasn’t a big drive.

They need to bat to lunch. Take the shine off. Let the pitch dry out some more, and batting should get easier.