ITE7376
Member
what a game
Andy wrote:
Akhter has shaped up nice, hes demonstrated he can play proper shots down the ground, and I feel like Harmer always gets runs against us. If these get it below 40 required it could be panic stations...
i was surprised to hear Harmer 'only' has 2 first class centuries, it feels like he's a better batsman and more consistent scorer than that
Inside-edge wrote:
I would imagine if you were new to cricket then Topley would be a good commentator as he describes the goings on in minute detail (often more than once) However, he loves the sound of his own voice and talks over the top of whomever he’s commentating with. I find him very biased and irritating.
That’s not bitching, it’s my opinion.
If i was to discount all of the comms guys working the county circuit on the basis of their bias I'm pretty sure there wouldn't be a single game I could listen to, they're all biased as hell!
I feel like it pretty much comes with the territory, mixed comms team from each country, each contributor is there to provide a bit of local colour and background knowledge specific to that county, which I always appreciate, those little asides 'of course he played for years for Sudbury CC in the East Anglian premier league' etc etc. happy days
GerryShedd wrote:
ITE7376 wrote:
GerryShedd wrote:
That would be the Don Topley about whom Derek Pringle said: "A strange cove, not always popular with his team-mates, Topley often gave the impression that he felt hard done by."
My own experience of him is that he joined me at a table for two at the back of the Lord's press box and totally ignored me - not a "do you mind if I join you?", "Hi, I'm Don" or "Ahoy, matey!". Just a blank stare.
Despite all of that, he might be an excellent commentator (or not).yes, that would be the same Don Topley
it wouldn't really be 'despite' any of that, though, would it, seeing as none of what you describe would necessarily factor into how good he is, or isn't, as a commentator. Two things can be true at once: Don Topley is a strange man, who was also rude once to a random in a commentary box. Don Topley can also be a good commentator. But let none of that get in the way of a good old forum bitching session.I shall take great delight in my new identity as a random.
taking delight in things is good for you, I hear
GerryShedd wrote:
That would be the Don Topley about whom Derek Pringle said: "A strange cove, not always popular with his team-mates, Topley often gave the impression that he felt hard done by."
My own experience of him is that he joined me at a table for two at the back of the Lord's press box and totally ignored me - not a "do you mind if I join you?", "Hi, I'm Don" or "Ahoy, matey!". Just a blank stare.
Despite all of that, he might be an excellent commentator (or not).
yes, that would be the same Don Topley
it wouldn't really be 'despite' any of that, though, would it, seeing as none of what you describe would necessarily factor into how good he is, or isn't, as a commentator. Two things can be true at once: Don Topley is a strange man, who was also rude once to a random in a commentary box. Don Topley can also be a good commentator. But let none of that get in the way of a good old forum bitching session.
I always look forward to the Essex fixtures each year as they mean the opportunity to listen to the brilliant Don Topley on the radio coverage.
paulbear wrote:
I think we should get a spinner in just for variation and being early season, so many batsmen will not have any real form so facing a spinner will be as difficult as facing pace bowler. Mason Crane got 8 wickets for Glamorgan against Yorkshire so why don't we just try it.
i'd whack taz Ali in there. but then my answer to most cricketing problems on the bowling side involves more (wrist) spin
****The_Lickey_Banker wrote:**
I think it's still very difficult to predict our first choice lineups. A few new (and old!) seam bowlers and no idea how involved Woaksy will be. My main concern is lack of an experienced spinner.
Other than the lack of a spinner,**
do we assume that taz ali is first cab off the rank ?
paulbear wrote:
I wonder if there will be a host of vacancies as far as the England team is concerned. There should be, I feel very sorry for anyone who has spent money to go over there
I went over in 2013-14. 'trip of a lifetime', I thought, 'wouldn't it be great to watch us win in Australia?', i thought, 'win or lose it will be a great experience', I thought.
sadly only the last one was true, of course. I only got to Oz for the melbourne test so of course the series was already done by then. It was, despite that, a great experience, albeit I suspect much of that was to do with being able to have a holiday with my good mucker (turned out the to be last before he got married). It was also tinged with sadness having seen the unravelling of Trotty and his obvious suffering at that point in time.
Andy wrote:
Just remembered, Jordan Thompson will be in that Hassan Ali role.
he loves bowling at the death, he's one of those who sees it as an opportunity to shine, always 'puts his hand up' as the terrible cliche goes, mixes up his slowies and yorkers and so on.
he's a good white ball cricketer is Thompson, I like the cut of his gib. His body language is very much 'up and at'em'
Andy wrote:
Just remembered, Jordan Thompson will be in that Hassan Ali role.
yeah, he's also probably in the 'Garton role' with the bat, or, he is at least as effective as garton is with the bat (I recall a great 50-odd off 18-odd balls from Thompson on finals days around 2023 i think it was)
to me if we do sign Sams (who may also be better with the bat than Garton or is at least as good), Garton would become entirely surplus to requirements as we wouldn't even need him to provide a left arm option
on which note- it seems at this point we aren't looking to sign a spinner as direct replacement for Briggs?
Andy wrote:
It's on the clubs social media.
Good news, definitely a player we should be backing. Got a decent amount of game time last season. Hope he gets a go in the Blast next year.
yeah we definitely need to give him as much experience as possible, as early as possible, especially now we don't have Lord Danny to spin us out of a hole.
Andy wrote:
I'd have said he's stepped up?
i guess i was thinking club/ground size, and assuming M'sex can afford bigger salaries in general, but yeah point taken
ExiledBrummie wrote:
Looking at that new boys Leics have made some smart acquisitions.
haven't they just. I'm slightly shocked Eskinazi has IMO taken a step down, i would have thought Middlesex would want to keep him, strange move for someone who has Franchise-level productivity in T20 over the last few years.
GerryShedd wrote:
> He spoke highly of Alex Davies as captain (sorry, guys, but he did!)
i didn't think St Ed could possibly do anything to lose the crowd on here, but there it is!
> He also said that he would really like to play in The Hundred and was disappointed not to be picked for one of the teams. He saw this as a chance to play against some of the best players in the world and that it might open the door for him to get some overseas franchise opportunities. He did think, though, that it should be changed into a T20 competition.
he was a little unlucky not to, IMO
> Plenty more; and he came across as a very sincere and likeable character.
somehow that is no surprise at all. I have no idea how i might have arrived at the conclusion but somehow the way he carries himself around the field just seems like he must be a very nice man. Woakes was the same, except i saw him at close quarters so i knew how polite and pleasant he was
Solbear wrote:
Quite surprised to see he's been named in the Lions squad:
surprising indeed, especially as that touring team implicitly has the next cabs off the rank in the event of injuries in the full squad
on a similar note, I notice that the U19 squad had Isaac Mohammed in, no Bears as far as I can see.
the talk is that Sonny Baker will be awarded an England central contract? My word, those seem to come cheap these days
Lenham didn't look the biggest turner of the ball to me so I guess I'm not surprised he wasn't a major threat with the red ball. Its funny how the white ball game has developed to where a wrist spinner could be a very tidy bowler in those formats with accuracy, flight and variety even if they aren't a big ripper.
I suppose the emergence of James Coles as a genuine spin option who bats in the top 5 has harmed the prospects of both Lenham and Foreman (also released).
If they've got rid of both Foreman and Lenham I wonder if it's an indication of Farbrace's (and maybe generic) particular demands nowadays, the '100' seemed to suggest that more and more often teams are wanting their spinners to be able to bat top 7 (white ball at least) and not being able to do so will really impact their chances.
On similar lines the 'specialist off spinner' seems even less common (at least, teams definitely seem to want to tick the 'slow left arm' and 'wrist spin' boxes just like they do the 'left arm seamer' box, approaching it from a very formulaic tick-box perspective as England did with their 2015-19 white ball team, but absolutely nobody seems to actively seek out offspinners), with teams assuming if they need someone twirling a bit of offspin there will always be a couple of batsmen who can turn their arm over. Other than Simon Harmer I'm struggling to think of another specialist off spinner getting significant wickets in our domestic white ball competitions.
a consistent feature of Somerset's knockout stage wins was their excellent middle over and death bowling. Both ourselves and Hants got off to flyers but got dragged back by the tight overs from Green and Goldsworthy, and Gregory is always a wicket threat with his changes of pace too. I'm not really sure what Goldsworthy does other than he must be clever, cos he's a tiny fella who won't get much bounce and doesn't appear to spin it that much.
regarding our serial failures in QFs i was wondering if my memory has it right. My perception is that they are generally rooted in batting failures which have been pretty much all-encompassing and spanned the whole batting unit in most games. Other than Davies's 70, I don't recall any other batsman even getting so much as a 50 across all 5 QFs. Gloucester was obviously the worst example
I would maybe make an exception for the Kent game, IIRC Adam Milne was on dominant form with the ball that whole white ball summer and was near-unplayable and IIRC he ripped our top order out and made the game pretty much null and void from an early point.
As far as the bowling, I don't recall any particularly wretched bowling displays to match the abjectness of the batting, I mean Gloucs we actually bowled well, even. And we bowled pretty damn well for the vast majority of 18ovs against Somerset.