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.

Devon_Bear wrote:

Andy wrote:

Does Michael Booth not qualify as a local player next season?
Let's hope so! I think a bowling attack of Booth, Bamber & Gilchrist looks tasty, backed up with OHD, Barnard & Webster too seems our best seam attack for some while. We just need a quality spinner added to our squad, unless we give Taz Ali a run in the side.

lets not forget Barker to add to all those other B's

paulbear wrote:

Just looked again at the Davies dismissal, shocking and the patronising comment about "Small men's pads" could only come from a patronising Surrey wanker who commentates using an 'Arseholes Microphone' - just to even it up.

let me guess was that Norcross

mad wrote:

Genuinely don't have an issue with any of the commentary teams. The Somerset bunch are fine IMHO one thing that grates me a bit with this Surrey lot is how much they strive to make it sound like the players have a really hard time playing county cricket. They're generally incisive and do show enthusiasm for good play from both sides but it's a bit too dour/downbeat for me compared to our own fellas. Maybe that's a result of sitting through 3 seasons where they've absolutely hammered everyone especially at home

i've listened to all of the county BBC radio comms teams sooner or later and I generally find them to be basically likeable, and engaged with local cricket and their own counties in a way I find to be quite likeably quaint almost. Surrey tend to raise my ire, probably mostly just because, well they're Surrey, Norcross aside, even.

I really enjoy seeing Peter Trego's input on the SCCC stream

Fully concur, but the wankers in the red framed specs and focus groups have told them that idiots and their baseball capped families want the 'glamour' of 16.66 overs. Renewed my Warwickshire membership today for the 36th year and was asked if I wanted some sort of 16.66 over bolt on. Informed them that I support Warwickshire, not some foul Tartrazine infused corn snack.

is it specifically the putative glamour of 100 ball that they are saying is popular, or the wider concept of 'Franchise Cricket'?
AFAIK they are talking about dropping the 100 ball format, which they only ever introduced because of Sky's exclusive domestic T20 rights, and making the 'Franchise Competition' a 'traditional' T20 as I believe the Sky exclusive deal expires this year.

regarding the 'glamour' of Franchise Cricket and all that comes with it (principally marketing and the premier slot in the season), attendances would suggest they are right, if they are getting more for womens 100 games than for some Bears T20 games at Edgbaston.

for white ball cricket a younger version of Ashton Agar would do nicely, if one exists. we got unlucky with him, too.

Devon_Bear wrote:

Well played to Young & Barnard for getting us back in the game. Let's hope they can keep going tomorrow morning & avoid any dodgy lbw decisions. With Mousley, Booth & Bamber to bat as well hopefully we can get ourselves a lead at some point.

I heard a brief bit of the Surrey radio commentary and they suggested that Young and Barnard are pretty much the last wickets they will need to take.

Nice to see their encyclopaedic knowledge of other counties and totally unbiased objectivity there

MalmesburyBear wrote:

I think Rocco’s parting comments were more of an “au revoir” rather than “Goodbye”, so you never know…..

he seemed perfect- really good but not quite good enough for international callups. I feel like we got a bit unlucky with Beau Webster on that score as I'm not sure he will be an absolute fixture in the aussie team

Solbear wrote:

Sadly, that was almost certainly the last time we’ll see Danny Briggs in a Bears shirt, barring a call up to the CC side, which is highly unlikely. We’re certainly going to miss him in T20 going forward, can’t see us playing both Taz and Jake so not sure who will come in for him as a finger spinner.

2 wrist spinners is 'bold' for sure, I will note though that in the 100, the all-conquering Oval lot have always played Sowter and paired him either with Zampa or Rashid Khan for a lot of it. The latter 2 are top line internationals for sure but I do believe two quality wrist spinners can co-exist in a T20 lineup, especially if different styles, left/right, taller/shorter, flatter/more flighted, which kind of describes Taz and Jake

realistically i don't think its likely to happen which is a shame as I absolutely love watching wrist spin launches into 'do you remember when we had Imran Tahir' lovestory

Bald_Reynard wrote:

MalmesburyBear wrote:

Danny has been an absolute joy in T20 cricket, turning many games in our favour with wickets and economy rate. At present I cannot see how we replace him, either through the current squad or by acquisition from another county. I think the only route is through an overseas acquisition. Many thanks Danny for some absolutely splendid performances!

I said on this thread a couple of days ago, that an overseas acquisition of a spinner is our No 1 priority this Autumn and he should be considered as a likely new Captain.

I didn't see him but that Aussie chap Rochiggiani (sp?) got excellent reviews on here, was there any talk of having him back? we knew Briggs was on his way out at the time

MalmesburyBear wrote:

Danny has been an absolute joy in T20 cricket, turning many games in our favour with wickets and economy rate. At present I cannot see how we replace him, either through the current squad or by acquisition from another county. I think the only route is through an overseas acquisition. Many thanks Danny for some absolutely splendid performances!

I couldn't agree more an absolute joy is exactly what he has been, its not quite the wrench that Jeetan's retirement was for me but he will be greatly missed and I'd be surprised if we manage to recruit anyone to directly replace him. Like you say nobody on the county circuit comes to mind, the names of left armers who come up to me would be, say, Callum Parkinson, Tom Hartley, decent bowlers but different styles and they don't have Briggs's stature or certainly not his prolific wicket-taking. It seems more an more common that finger-spinners are batsmen who bowl part time, the specialists seem to be a declining breed due to the prevalence of wrist spin?

I am fairly sure last season (2024) in the T20 marked his best single season's haul in terms of wickets with i think it was 29, so we may even have seen him at the apex of his powers. That's what I will be telling myself anyway. His record will stand for a long, long time I suspect.

my favourite thing to remember about Briggs is, the number of times batsmen would get out trying to repeat their 4/6 shot against him. Comparing him to Jeetan it seemed like Jeetan absolutely hated to get hit at all, whereas Briggs, it seemed like he wanted to tempt them just enough, getting them to hit a six and get excited was almost like he had them just where he wanted. I lost count of the number of times he got them out trying that 2nd consecutive big shot, to the point where I thought it was a bit of scouting/stat work they must have neglected, 'if you hit Briggs for six, whatever you do don't try repeating it'. He's all time leading wkt taker for a reason and if you think you've got his measure, its you thats the mug, now off you go boy.

He has single-handedly turned me off test match special, he's the most self-indulgent, infuriating comms guy in radio history. He honestly makes me think about doing serious violence to him.

Andy wrote:

In the penultimate over? After the boundaries Gleeson closed out that over with 2 dot balls to almost get us the momentum back and keep Dickson off strike going into the last. 2 massive dot balls at such a crucial moment.

also true! Momentum is a fickle thing in T20. i was mostly whinging about the poor option of the short wide one

btw for me a real sliding doors moment was that short wide one that Dickson uppercutted off Gleeson in the 19th. That was a poor option IMO, and then next delivery Gleeson seemed to come pretty close to nailing the wide yorker but Dickson to be fair timed the cover off it to hit that for 4, too. but those 2 deliveries turned it from an impossibility in the last over to a merely unlikely possibility. Its a bit unfair to Gleeson to be too critical as he still only went at 8s, but those 2 consecutive balls massively changed the momentum and got their fans right back into it and made them believe it was possible, and the pressure on Barnard increased greatly as a result. Like i say i thought it was a real sliding doors moment, if we go for say 6 runs off those two balls we win

what was the alternative to Barnard bowling the last? my mate at work just told me Mousley apparently shaped up as though he'd be taking the ball but davies ruled Barnard instead? whats the thoughts on giving it to the Mouse? would have been 'brave' but could it have gone much worse?

(Ironically Barnard's wide ball came when he tried the lesser-spotted (for him) slower ball changeup which he then didn't have the nerve to try again)

other than getting at least one more Lintott over in earlier, which I guess would have pushed Briggs's last over one later and allowed Gleeson and OHD to bowl out the last 3?

meashambear wrote:

Somerset supporters are the worst I have ever seen. You can tell that the banter to our players is not funny due to the reaction of them when taking a wicket.

For some reason, I thought they would be a knowledgeable & supportive bunch but they just seem one eyed, rude & entitled.

I got a text from my mate that the Somerset fans must have been heckling pretty badly but that was the exact opposite of my experience

I was in the Trescothick Pavilion lower and you couldn't ask for a better traditional set of proper cricket fans, smattering of polite applause for Bears boundaries, polite applause for reaching 50/100/150 and for Davies's 50, and a very generous hand for Davies for his innings when he got out. I guess that's where the members generally hang out, I definitely got the impression many of the people around me knew each other from sitting together for some years, but we shouldn't tar all SCCC fans with the same brush as in the MTP they were absolutely golden

Andy wrote:

Re. death bowling generally, we shouldn't have this issue next season because if fit Jordan Thompson will be doing it.

yes, and he is pretty damn good at it. one of those Stokes-type cricketers who (cliche) 'puts his hand up' and really, really loves the responsibility. on which point you make a really good point about Barnard's body language that 20th over. Davies's timewasting tactic weren't helping at all, either, (it got to the point where it seemed to me to go beyond tactical necessity, and beyond even gamesmanship to try and get the batters nervous, almost seemed like Davies did it because he was getting booed and he's such a contrary bugger he instinctively feels if he is getting booed he must be doing something right... he really isn't one to go through life like it's a popularity context is he, Davies?) But at that point it was clearly us with the pressure on, especially away from home, batter had momentum, we had the pressure of defending and the timewasting was making Barnard worse, not better.

I agree with pretty much all of what's been said already

I thought we were both 'lucky' and 'unlucky'. we were definitely lucky to put on 190 in the first place, take out that atrocious over Meredith bowled to Yates, and it was awful stuff from an international, take that out and we would have been setting 175 and there's basically no game. the lack of sixes was definitely a factor- I do worry about Kai Smith as a 'finisher' in that sense, as in that position sometimes you just need someone who will clear the front leg and send it over the leg side, and that isn't Smith's game seemingly.

(a word for our running between the wickets we pushed a lot of 2s running with great urgency and clearly out-did them on that front)

I have to say I thought they bowled exceptionally well overs 10-20, they bowled to their fields very well and we hadn't the form or power to just send it over the heads of the men on the wide boundaries.

on the other hand up to over 16 we basically bowled very well and it took an absolute freak of an innings to beat us- in the same position another 5 times would Dickson even manage that again 1/5 times? I don't know but that isn't a knock he or anyone else is replicating often so we were definitely 'unlucky' in that sense

RE: the bowling changes/Lintott. I was actually thinking during the game how well Davies had managed the bowlers, up to 15/16 it worked pretty well, they never had chance to get on top of one bowler and each bowler did pretty well.

With Lintott, they got the sweep out against him right away and I think we were intimidated by Tom Abell being at the crease, and his reputation of playing spin very well (which he does). By the time he was out, it was the 16th over (I think) and at that point probably too late to bowl a wrist spinner. maybe could say we could have put him in against Dickson when he was fresh at the crease when Rew went, but Abell was still there at that point and the seamers and Briggs were bowling well

I take the point that we shouldn't change the gameplan and leave a bowler on the sidelines just for one bad over but by the same token, if we had bowled Jake another and he'd got hit for another crucial 12 I'm pretty sure someone on here would be saying 'why bowl him? he'd already been hit for 15, disastrous decision'.
I'd definitely have given him another, but I don't think its as simple a decision as is being made out whilst Abell was at the crease, and by the time he was gone it was death overs, basically. And had Lintott been given another over and it was disastrous I absolutely guarantee someone on here would be giving Davies pelters for it

We can definitely talk about Hain being a big game bottler, by the way, can't we? That's definitely 6 failures in QFs now (he didn't get anything in the win vs Surrey what seems to be decades back), I love him, and most of our QF capitulations have been characterised by team batting collapses where absolutely nobody has showed up (Saturday being the exception and I'm pretty sure Davies's 71 makes the best single contribution we have got in the 5 defeats), but if we are looking at root causes, our best batsman never showing up for a single QF has to be one of them.

Again, take Yates's slightly freakish knock out and that card is basically Davies, plus failures, and Smith with a marginal contribution at the end but getting his runs too slowly for the match context. In terms of this year I have lost count how many times Hain has middled/near-middled it straight to fielders, he's hit pretty much the same shot straight to mid-off at least 3 and I think 4 times, and 2 more that I recall to midwicket.

Looking back, at first I was slightly critical of Davies's shot selection to get out, not sure he needed to play the high risk option there but we were getting a little bit bogged down, it looked like a 220 par pitch, and he had Hain who had played himself in, Barnard, Smith, Garton Lintott still to come with just 8 overs to go, so I can't be too critical. It turns out, we needed him to stay at the crease more than it looked at the time.

anyway I will be at Taunton, for all I am going not even in hope never mind expectation hahaha. Edit: I just looked at the Somerset squad , and rather wish I hadn't! At our best I don't think our batting is that much short of theirs, especially without Banton. But bloody hell, the bowling, and the seam bowling in particular, seems a level above ours.
Riley Meredith, Craig Overton, Jake Ball and Gregory as the seam all rounder, bugger me. There is major pressure on Danny Briggs here with those small boundaries and the bowlers around him.
we really need to see the new ball off here and I'll be delighted and surprised if we do.

Gleeson is a concern for me too. Last year he was incredibly tight and economic, this year both for us and the 100 he has been taken for 10s in most games.