We’ve definitely tried to over bowl on this pitch.
We’ve been searching for big swing and big movement, and that’s almost the opposite of what they did.
They stuck to the basics, top of off bowling, made us play as much as possible and it just did enough to miss the bat or find the edge.
Whereas we’ve gone looking for big movement (understandably considering the position we’re in) and it’s resulted in too many over pitched balls or balls on the legs, and then over compensating and going too short and wide.

Tayls79 wrote:

I'd honestly give speculating about relationships in the squad a miss. We'll never know the true situation. We don't know whether it is disharmonious, toxic or anything else. In any other working environment it would be and should be here, confidential. All we do here by speculating on it is gossip.

100% not speculation.

Hain looks so out of sorts.
I do hope this isn’t a sign of bigger problems from the start of the season.

Though I do wonder, if the environment and the fact that apparently almost the entire squad hates Robinson, and he’s sucked the joy out of the sport for some of them, is having a very visible effect.

I had the same thoughts about his post match interview.
I do wonder if Robinsons approach to interviews was a clue to his mindset for the year. Didn’t seem too fussed by the CC or even the ODC. Gave platitudes, cliches, kept saying it was fine. Because what he cared about was the T20.
Now they’re out the T20, he’s realised he’s let everything else slide, and the pressure is really on.

Lancs are now 36 behind us, due to play Somerset next week.
As rain is going to play a larger role in the next 2 weeks, it would take an almighty effort for them to win 2 and us lose 2.
Thought that match summed up the frustrating nature of this season.
Good new ball bowling, but then letting sides score too many, the ability to score runs quickly but the constant potential for a match turning hour with the bat undoing all the hard work, followed up by a battling spirit, and the weather intervening at crucial moments.
There’s a lot of talent in this side. It would only take an extra player or 2 to plug some obvious holes, and some more consistency (which is a mental issue rather than talent), to really push on.

I wonder if they swap him for Dan. Or stick with him to give him some confidence.

He strikes me as a player playing with no baggage right now.
We’ve always known he’s an excellent player. No captaincy and clarity about where he’s going next year has meant he seems to be able to just bat and not worry about other things.
Great shame to lose him.

BosworthBear wrote:

Play abandoned so now we have the 1030 start again tomorrow and start still short of parity. Could really have done with a couple of hours more today!

So frustrating. The best time to bat on this pitch is clearly the late afternoon and evening sessions, when it’s dried out from being undercover and the overnight dew this time of year.
Twice we’ve been robbed of batting at the best time of the day.

No denying that was poor this morning.
But I also think it was hugely unlucky.

That pitch was placid yesterday, very sedate paced, the ball was just getting to the stage where the kookaburra gets soft and stops moving. We were well placed when the bad light and rain intervened.

Suddenly we’ve got a pitch that’s been undercover and it’s moving off the pitch with rested bowlers. Batsmen are fresh at the crease effectively. It was a perfect storm of bad circumstances.
As we can see, now it’s been uncovered, sun and wind on it, it’s dried off and offering little.

Don’t get me wrong, not impossible to battle through it. But definitely hard to do in those circumstances.
All made far worse, by the fact we let them get 100 runs more than they should have. They were 67-4. We let them build partnerships.
If we bowl better, we’re not following on now, and it’s far less of an issue.

GerryShedd wrote:

BristolBear wrote:

Yesterday summed up our bowling season in a single day.
Let them off the hook massively. Going to end up getting at least 100 runs more than they should.
Just as in the rest of the season, it was obvious we needed someone with that extra yard of pace to be the point of difference as a partnership breaker and for mopping up the tail. Or a more attacking spinner who can bowl teams out in the 4th innings but also has the flight and guile to get early innings wickets even when the pitch isn’t offering much.

If there's anyone out there who can wave a wand and deliver this, can they also make me six inches taller and fifty years younger - thanks.

Don’t get me wrong, I appreciate they don’t just grow on trees. But at the same time, acknowledging you have a problem is the first step. And we’ve either ignored it or thought we were smarter than everyone else, and tried to do it on the cheap with the likes of Booth and the bowling of Yates, Bethell and Mousley.
We could have kept Stone over Norwell or Miles. Both Parkinson brothers signed for Div 1 teams this off season.
It’s a case of prioritising, and we clearly didn’t make it a priority. Other counties can do, so it’s not as if it’s impossible we just chose not or didn’t realise we should. Both equally scary scenarios.

Yesterday summed up our bowling season in a single day.
Let them off the hook massively. Going to end up getting at least 100 runs more than they should.
Just as in the rest of the season, it was obvious we needed someone with that extra yard of pace to be the point of difference as a partnership breaker and for mopping up the tail. Or a more attacking spinner who can bowl teams out in the 4th innings but also has the flight and guile to get early innings wickets even when the pitch isn’t offering much.

A draw with decent bonus points is probably plenty to be safe. Especially as I can’t see Lancs or Notts coming away from Durham and Essex with a win.
Just stay in Div 1, and let’s get into the winter and start making the changes needed.

I just think we lack some guts, but also a bit of intelligence in that middle order especially.
When I think of players I want in a batting crisis from our club, it’s Hain, Burgess and Barnard.
Hard to do from 3 or 4 in a T20 for Hain. But do I back Mousley or Benjamin in those situations. No. Their MO is ‘smash it’.
But I look at the amount of times over the last few years in championship and one day cricket, that I’ve seen Barnard and Burgess play the situation perfectly. They’ve battled, played smart, can clear the fence but also Burgess is superb at just manipulating the field, keeping the runs coming. That was all we needed and we just brainlessly kept trying to smash it. Then when we realised that wasn’t working, we then went at 4 or 5 an over for a few overs. Which made it harder again.
With that many fielders out you can go at 7 an over without really trying, if you’re smart enough.
It all screams of a tactical naivety, which we’ve seen in all formats. Too often the coach and captain don’t have a proper game plan. There’s no understanding of what we’re trying to do in different periods of the game.

KingofSpain wrote:

Larsen, the so called "performance director". Let's see him earn his money now because to date all he has done is bring in second rate cheap Kiwi players.

Problem is Robinson was part of hiring Larsen. He was on the interviewing panel. He made a recommendation.
Which is ridiculous, how can he be part of hiring someone who’s supposed to be his boss?
The club really needs to sort its act out. Stop trying to be a conference centre, wedding location with a cricket pitch. Sort out the cricket operations side, invest properly, and compete on all fronts.
It’s simple but it takes proper leadership, question is do we have that. Recent history says no.

Benjamin, Davies, Robinson can all sod off.
Moeen, Garton, and Gleeson shouldn’t be far behind them.

We must have invested more in the T20 team than anyone. Full of mercenaries and overinflated egos. Sacrificed a top championship team and achieved nothing.

Watched talent like Rhodes, Hose, Brookes walk out the door. Pissed off Barnard, Burgess is apparently similarly unsettled as Rhodes. All for nothing.
We had an opportunity to capitalise on a championship winning team, and Robinson apparently can only concentrate on 1 format at a time.
He plays favourites with no basis. Rewards mediocrity repeatedly. This should be it for Robinson.

These sort of dismissals do tend to even out over a season for teams, if not for players.
I can think of about 5 or 6 vs Surrey in the last 2 years that have gone badly against us.
Burgess got one last week against Somerset where he seemed nowhere near it.
It hurts for Kent because of the position they’re in, but if they lose this match it won’t be the decisions but rather their first innings they’ll look back on and blame.

It’s all very odd, can’t quite tell what’s gone wrong on this.
It seemed that they signed him thinking he was going to be like a Harmer, Elgar, Worrall, or Hughes type of overseas, play the full season and all formats.
He obviously wasn’t in Pakistans plans at that time. Then there was all change and he was. Which is an understandable complication.
But there seems to be crossed wires between Ali and the club as to what the expectations were regarding the second half of the season.

I do admire the club trying to get an overseas that stays the entire season. But arguably they’ve ended up in a worse position than if they’d have tried to get different overseas for different periods of the season.

Just about a perfect day.
Doesn’t look like a tough batting pitch, I’d put it down to good bowling and a visual demonstration of why Kent are rock bottom.

Bat all day tomorrow now. Rack up the runs, keep them out there as long as possible.

The lack of a top quality spinner is my biggest take away from this match. We’ve known the lack of resources and a point of difference in the seam attack since before the season began.
But seeing what Leach did this morning, we could have really put the pressure on them chasing this target with someone similar.
Yates, Bethell and Mousley aren’t good enough to be relied upon solely. They are handy party timers in 4 day cricket, not all rounders. They might have a really good day once a year, but they can't do it consistently.

Devon_Bear wrote:

We need to get Rew out asap or we're done for.

Nah there was never any danger. They wanted him to attack, not a single player on the boundary. OHD bowled for him to drive because him going hard and chasing it was the only chance of getting a wicket on such a slow pitch.
Then they had to bowl part timers in Bethell and Yates because of the light. Again, not trying to defend the boundary properly to see if him attacking it could draw a mistake. But it was too slow and the bowlers weren’t good enough. At the end you could see Davies go up to the umpire, I presume saying he wanted to bowl his seamers, which he knew would take them off and get the draw.

Don’t worry, Somerset will make it seem like Rew played the greatest innings known to man, with zero context.