GerryShedd
Super Moderator
Since England play Australia in T20 internationals on the day before and the day after T20 Finals Day, I guess that none of the England squad will be available to play for their county on the big day. So if the Bears qualify, that will include Bethell and/or Mousley if they are selected for England.
Match drawn.
Updated table here:
https://www.espncricinfo.com/series/county-championship-division-one-2024-1410191/points-table-standings
Ironically, it looks as though the only ground where it isn't raining is Manchester (oh,and Scarborough).
All credit to Ed Barnard. And Chris Rushworth showed today how much we have missed him.
My report on the day.
I hope I'm being too pessimistic about the weather:
https://deepextracover.com/2024/08/vitality-county-championship-match-report-day-two-warwickshire-v-somerset/
Rushworth back but no Sam Hain
No news of the Somerset squad either, though they have released three bowlers on loan so must be pretty confident of the form and fitness of the rest.
What do we think the team will look like? Do we know if Sam Hain is fit?
Fair point (as ever!).
Regarding The Hundred, I accept that the BBC have a vested interest in talking up the competition. But, assuming that they didn't make up their statistics and were just a bit selective in what they quoted, it doesn't alter the fact that The Hundred does appear to have:
attracted new people to the game
brought families in
helped to promote the women's game
The numbers may be down and there may have been some freebies; but over half a million is a lot of bums on seats.
I have no interest in The Hundred whatsoever and from a selfish point of view would love for it to disappear because of its effect on the competitions and the team that I do care about. But there is no doubt that it has found a market and achieved some of its aims.
The BBC reports today:
"The England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) announced that 540,000 tickets were sold for this year's tournament, taking the total beyond two million over the first four years.
Of those, more than a million attended women's games and there were record crowds for women's matches at seven of the eight grounds used in The Hundred in 2024.
For all that the competition continues to split opinion, confirmation that 41% of tickets this year were sold to families and 30% to people new to cricket suggests it has been successful in its aim of bringing people to the sport.
Despite that, TV viewing figures were down on previous years. Although being up against the Olympics for two weeks in the middle of the tournament, perhaps that is to be expected - and the BBC's coverage of the men's final still attracted almost half a million more viewers than the 2023 final."
He has now signed a contract extension:
https://edgbaston.com/news/che-simmons-signs-warwickshire-contract-extension/
Well, I enjoyed my day in the Welsh sunshine but a very disappointing performance and result.
I agree about the death bowling.
As for the batting, it wasn't just that the top order failed but that they took a long time to do so. Between them, Will Rhodes, Hamza Shaikh, Chris Benjamin and Kai Smith scored 20 runs in 69 balls. In the normal course of events, you might have expected that one or more of them would have gone on from a slow start, speeded up and made a big score. On this occasion, it didn't happen and left Burgess and the lower middle order with a massive mountain to climb.
Anyway, there were positives from the competition, the Kai Smith innings being the most memorable.
Averages are here:
https://www.espncricinfo.com/records/tournament/averages-batting-bowling-by-team/one-day-cup-2024-16023?team=1479
Graham Smith previews the semis here:
https://deepextracover.com/2024/08/metro-bank-one-day-cup-semi-final-previews/
A star is born!
Hamza Shaikh 91 v Sri Lanka today.
Winners play Glamorgan at Sophia Gardens on Sunday.
If Glamorgan win, they’ll be dancing in the streets of Splott.
There used to be two “evening” papers on sale all day - the Mail and the Despatch. Buying the latest edition and looking in the Stop Press column was the way to find all the latest scores, the equivalent of logging into Cricinfo on your phone.
The two papers eventually merged.