Exiled Bear
Administrator
An enjoyable day overall in the end. A good recovery, particularly in the evening session. I thought all bowlers bowled well, there were very few freebies, which makes a change from recent games! Hopefully we can keep the pressure on tomorrow morning.
Also a word on the Rose Bowl - it was my first time there for a county game (saw England there a few years ago) and it’s a bit soulless. They also seemingly couldn’t be bothered to have a working PA system in most of the ground!
Two out bowled not playing a shot. Dreadful
Olly Stone is 12th man and is having a bowl on the square during lunch. I wonder why he isn’t playing? Given the weather I would’ve thought that the pitch will suit his bowling
GerryShedd wrote:
If you thought that the Bears took a beating, just be grateful that you're not a Derbyshire supporter.
I'm annoyed that, because Somerset qualified and the Bears didn't, Exiled Bear's mate Harry Everett will get the nod to report for Deep Extra Cover on Finals Day. It's a great day to be in the Press Box - lots of excitement and non-stop food!
Ha! I will pass on your annoyance!
Slightly annoying also that they took away the two records that we broke just a few weeks ago! And it also got more coverage than it did when we broke them, but then Somerset are a more "trendy" county...
That was embarrassing. I made a late decision to go to the game after landing back in the UK at lunchtime today. I don’t regret it as it’s probably the only time I’ll get to Edgbaston this season but crikey that was poor.
Did the pitch conditions change? It looked like we were batting on a completely different pitch to Hampshire. I think we barely middled or timed half a dozen balls in the whole innings!
Also, why did Mousley not bowl?
It's not uncommon to play three spinners these days either, plus his batting is good enough on its own anyway.
That's a terrible call at the end to give that as a no ball.
Almost certainly - we'd need to lose heavily and Derbyshire would have to win by a huge margin to overturn the NRR difference. I think we'd be looking at record defeats and wins for it to happen.
Agreed! Also, Duckworth-Lewis today is bizarre, they are somehow ahead even though they need 13 an over for 7 overs with 4 wickets down??
Still don't know quite what you've got against Vihari, he was no worse than any of the other overseas players we had last season.
Pandya is a good signing and should bring a few more people into the ground as well. I'm guessing we'll be playing most of our matches at Portland Road?
George Dobell reports that Chris has withdrawn from the rest of the second XI match after experiencing some discomfort in his knee:
Hopefully just a precaution
And Burgess got a wicket! Is there anything he can’t do?!
Similarly, I can't recall the last time we got maximum batting bonus points.
While I approve of being cautious when batting, particularly early in the innings, when we score this slowly it does mean the bowling side are never out of the game. All it takes is a wicket or two and they’re right back on top again
Another terrific win. Great to do it in front of a big crowd and on tv as well. Very tight in the group now though so our good NRR could come in handy.
Bald_Reynard wrote:
Here we go again! Already 3 down, against the bottom team in the Group, who have only won 1 game! Once again, Yates fails to capitalise. And once again, Davies fails as an opener. When will Management learn the lessons of this campaign?!
To be fair, I don’t think there was much Davies could have done about that.
Value for money is something else entirely and he probably isn't offering that (without knowing the figures) but at the very least he went a long way towards winning us that first game on his own (with a good contribution from Hain as well)
I'm not convinced about Rhodes as a T20 batsman, his record is pretty poor (averaging less than 15 from 56 matches). He could be a useful bowling option though.
Stirling definitely is better than Pollock, Pollock only has 99 runs from 9 innings with a best of 28 so far this season!
Squad:
Carlos Brathwaite (C)
Chris Benjamin
Jacob Bethell
Danny Briggs
Henry Brookes
Alex Davies (WK)
Sam Hain
Adam Hose
Jake Lintott
Dan Mousley
Craig Miles
Will Rhodes
Olly Stone
Rob Yates
Stirling misses out due to Ireland commitments.