Highveld wrote:

It was an excellent catch by the keeper, and better batsmen than him have been strangled down the legside before.

Even with a few low scores, he looks more secure than Vihari ever did.

Neither looked great. But Vihari had 3 matches, scored 100 runs and a high score of 50. Malan has now had 4 matches, scored 90 runs and a high score of 30. So right now, the stats don’t look great for either, but worse for Malan.

The most concerning difference between the 2 however is that Malan looks to be getting worse. His highest score came in his first match, and he looks like he’s trying things to play his way into form, rather than just playing.
This wicket is the perfect example, he got strangled because he was clearly struggling with the ball outside off stump, lots of play and misses, so he came down and across to change the line, which lead to him knicking it down leg side. The irony being if he’d have stayed in his original stance that ball would have been a perfect boundary ball on his pads to get him going. Instead it was fractionally leg side of him, and he was trying to reach it, rather than let it come to him.

white-lightning wrote:

Rhodes gone cheaply. Malan will soon follow the way he's going after the ball so early. Play yourself in!!!

It’s difficult to watch isn’t it. 3 or 4 big wafts at balls well outside off. Doesn’t inspire confidence that’s for sure.

This is the match for me. 6 down, a lead of 177. No excuses not to have at least 100 run lead.
If they can run through the tail sharpish, it gives them over a day to bat to build an unreachable target, and still be able to put Derbyshire in for an hour on day 3 and have the whole of day 4 to bowl them out.

I think the point about dominating the bowling is a good one. It’s a cliche but you’ve got to earn the right as a team to do that. 1-3 possibly 4 as well have to blunt the attack, get them into 3 or 4th spells, then 4/5/6/7 can attack weary bowlers. But our 4/5/6/7 are endlessly rebuilding when we’re 30-2 or 50/3. Lamb, Burgess and Bresnan are capable of going at a good rate and putting the pressure on the bowlers. But they can’t if they’re having to rebuild, and make sure there’s not a collapse. That makes it difficult to build really big partnerships as they spend a lot of time at the wicket defensively, and you build big scores with big partnerships. The lack ofwhich is reflected in our scores.

You look today, numbers 1, 2 and 3 have been outscores by 7, 8 and 9. I wonder how many times this year, that has been the case. If you’re going to put up big scores, that can’t be the norm.
Hain and Burgess should have gone on to get 100’s, but we’re so heavily reliant on Burgess, Bresnan and Briggs every innings to dig us out.

It’s clearly an ECB decision, as it was reported he was training at Edgbaston recently, but the club weren’t optimistic he’d be available.
What I can’t understand is of the IPL group why only certain players can’t play. Malan is in tomorrow’s squad to play for Yorkshire, Billings was in the Kent squad and has been called up to England, Livingstone pulled out a bit earlier but he’s been playing for Lancashire.
If he isn’t allowed to play County cricket at all, his first match won’t be until June 23rd at the earliest. That’s almost a year of his career that he could say has been wasted.

Off out on loan for County Championship to Derbyshire this time until mid July.
With his contract up this season, I suspect he’s trying to get in the shop window, and may have been told he won’t be getting renewed.

I think this is the key round for 2 reasons.
Firstly, this has the potential to be a big haul of points with a win and lots of bonus points. Which obviously has an impact on the group.
But also, I suspect Essex will beat or at least draw against Notts at Chelmsford. Either of those 2 results puts us in the driving seat of the group you’d feel, with Essex having played a game more, and Notts then being behind or roughly level with us on points, but still having to go to Durham where the rain is more likely to play a role, and we all know Durham are much better at home than away.

Each county is different depending on the risk assessment they’ve done, and thus their adjusted capacity. There’s nothing regulation or safety wise stopping away fans. It’s just ticket availability.
So for Essex, no way will the members not take up the 200 tickets. Whereas for larger grounds the members won’t take up all the available tickets and away fans can purchase them as long as through the proper channels and do any health declarations that club requires.

That’s a match we probably don’t win a year or two ago. That’s a mark of serious progress mentally. Excellent team win, lots of contributions.

I think that stumping by Burgess is possibly the best piece of work I’ve seen in a long time by a keeper. Leg side stumpings are always a bit special, but against the opening bowler.... that’s an amazing effort.

A good target set, excellent partnership by Burgess and Briggs. Added to the runs. Took away some overs. Nicely set up.
Good to get one before lunch, even if we gave them a bonus 15 runs with some poor bowling.

On the Notts chat, I don’t actually mind the sledging and send offs. That’s part of the game. Notts do it more than others no doubt, but for the most part you can live with it.
What annoys me is the semi appeals, and the looks of anguish as if they’ve been robbed of a wicket or had a near miss, when balls hit the middle of the bat, or good shots are played. It just seems a sense of arrogance and entitlement that because they play for Notts and they think that’s so great, that they were unlucky not to get a wicket, and it’s got nothing to do with the skill of the opposition. Which you’d think would have been drilled out of them and replaced with some humility considering until this season they hadn’t won a first class match in 2 years.

Good recovery from Burgess, well supported from Briggs.

Just personal opinion from finally getting to the ground today, but I’ve never seen a side get so excited as Notts do, for balls that were not even remotely close to being a chance or appeal worthy. They had hands on heads and gave it oohs and ahhs almost got every ball, even for shots that Rhodes and Burgess had very comfortably hit to the boundary.

Today has been very much our season summed up. Failure to finish sides off, and letting them get 50-100 too many. Alongside poor top order batting not setting a platform or taking advantage of the situation.
250 target you’ve got to think is the minimum. 300-320 would have been the plan.

Andy wrote:

Wish I hadn't have talked him up now, screamer...

But that proves my point. Does the glamorous things well. But also let through more byes this morning and more untidy fumbles for what should he straight forward takes.

I mean imagine if he hadn’t cost Notts 85 runs by dropping an easier chance off Rhodes on 6......

Excellent from Norwell and OHD this morning.
But very different bowling from Notts. Yesterday they were economical even if not getting wickets. Today they’re serving up a lot of “hit me” balls.
On the collapse, I think you’re usually going to see the second new ball have an effect, so that explains it somewhat. But I also think losing Malan and Burgess to very poor umpiring decisions on day one really hurt. If 2 of your 6 wickets are clearly not out, and with them being 2 of your more fluent batsmen that is going to limit how well you can attack later on, and bonus points too.

Andy wrote:

Moores looks like he's one of the better glovemen on the circuit.

Unfortunately got to disagree on this part. Seen him keep on red ball a few times now. He does some things well like standing up to Mullaney. But too many costly mistakes, dropping a regulation chance off Rhodes on 6 cost them 85. Plus if the ball comes through at an awkward height standing back, or bounces before him he regularly fumbles, or like yesterday misses it all together. A lot of style over substance on his keeping I’m afraid.
In regards to our keeper going forward, I’d keep Burgess. I’d have him in my top 5 pure keepers in County Cricket. Never costs the team, and makes a lot of grabs others couldn’t.
Think we’re seeing what he can do with the bat too, just a shame he got an excellent ball against Essex and a bad decision in this match. He plays all formats, and seems to be popular amongst the team.
I don’t think there’s any keepers this year we would be interested in, the chance was when Cox was available, but by all accounts the club didn’t pursue him, as he wanted to get paid a great deal, and had his eyes on Yorkshire and Middlesex.

Shame about the finish to the day but that’s what happens with the new ball. And that’s a decent position when being put in.
Thought Malan and Burgess were unlucky, both got rather poor LBW decisions.
The top order was definitely better, with 3 of the 5 getting a score and 1 getting a poor decision. Just need big hundreds now rather than 50’s.

I think Malan got a bad one there. Looks like a big inside edge, and possibly outside the line.
But Rhodes looks much better today. Maybe he just needed that one bit of luck. Hopefully he comes out after lunch and cashes in.

I think the ECB have made it very clear over the winter and into this season that the T20 World Cup and the allowing of players to play in the IPL were their priorities. All else, especially county cricket can be sacrificed in achieving those aims.
Which makes no sense for a number of cricketing and financial reasons. But at the end, it’s always the counties that lose the most, they don’t get their best players and they make less money. At least Woakes is being very well paid whether he plays or not.