I had exactly the same thought that Bethell's selection had a whiff of Troughton's call up. It took Jim a while to get over that experience. But I have confidence that Bethell is a rare talent and the England set up is good at nurturing talent these days.

Better effort second innings salvaged a draw. We will really miss Rhodes and need to replace him with a quality middle order batter, along with adding a match-winning spinner and quick bowler to the squad for next season.
Robinson's interview afterwards was interesting. Instead of the usual excuses and taking the positives, he called out the bowling and batting underperformance in the first innings. Quite unlike him. Perhaps he is fearing for his future.

It is hard to be positive coming to the end of another dismal season. The collapse from 76/1 to 128 all out is a case in point.

I am going to write to the Secretary of State. My opposition is based on the fundamental issue of franchise cricket and creating a capitalist vehicle which destroys the very fabric of the sport. It is pure greed.

Larsen needs to be ruthless. Northants sacked their coach immediately after their T20 quarter final loss. Robinson needs to go now so we can start rebuilding.
An interesting point previously made about signing cricketers from other counties who need an opportunity, which was a successful policy when we recruited the likes of Chopra, Clarke, Ambrose Rankin etc.
Gilo was a specialist at doing this and he is replicating it at Worcester bringing in players like Hose, Ethan Brookes and Rob Jones. Alan Richardson is doing wonders with the coaching plus they have homegrown players coming through. That is the template for us.
The policy of spending our playing budget on mercenary players for one competition led by a weak head coach and supplemented by poor batting and bowling coaches needs to be ended.
Time for a fresh start.

The Moeen signing was purely a marketing thing. His availability is sketchy and he doesn't seem that invested. This is the problem with signing mercenaries just looking for their next gig.
I wish him well on the franchise cricket circuit and going into coaching. He would be a better batting coach than that fraud Frost.

A reset is needed. Starting with the reinstatement of Warwickshire Bears and binning off the Birmingham nonsense.

The dressing room is a comfortable place, even in defeat. Robinson will be telling them about the positives and sometimes you can lose games of cricket but it's OK because we have young players blah blah blah.
Get Trotty in, he will take no prisoners and install a winning mentality. Continually accepting failure is the start of a decline.

Larsen, the so called "performance director". Let's see him earn his money now because to date all he has done is bring in second rate cheap Kiwi players.

Sibley left because we wouldn't select him in T20s. Scored a march winning knock for Surrey in their quarter final. Similarly Rhodes is leaving because of a similar situation and will probably go to Durham and win matches for them. Yet we can keep picking serial failure Benjamin and the like.
Go now Robinson and Frost.

Davies already moaning about the slow pitch. Surely Gary Barwell will have prepared a pitch to order with our home advantage. Also the usual talk about 'positives'. Rubbish. Season over.

Robinson must go after this. There isn't a winning mentality.
All of our playing budget went on this competition and we failed again.
The recruitment has been abysmal. The leadership is poor.
We cannot continue to accept the excuses or platitudes which will no doubt follow this latest pitiful showing.

Devon_Bear wrote:

I think they will go with the extra batter at 7, and i think they will stick with Benjamin. He played in all 14 of the group stage matches, and seems to be favoured over others in this format. Predicted team:

Davies
Moeen
Mousley
Hain
Bethell
Barnard
Benjamin
Garton
Briggs
Lintott
Gleeson

Come on you Bears!
If they select Benjamin again then Robinson has no backbone. He has done nothing to warrant a place in the team, other than as a back up wicketkeeper.

Of course Benjamin will play. And with Hassan out I guess Foulkes will fill that spot. From what I've seen, he looks like a bang average bowler brought over on the cheap (Now I hope he proves me wrong and breaks Neil Carter's record T20 bowling figures).

An update at last! By the sounds of it they are anticipating him coming back next year.

We did what we had to do today. Kent must be one of the worst team's ever to grace the top divison though.

Highveld wrote:

As mentioned last week, he was realeased as he was unable to fulfil his contract.

I missed that, thanks. Any further detail?

What ever happened to Hassan Ali? He had a minor knock at the end of the T20 group stage and hasn't been seen or heard of since.
Will he be back for the T20 quarter final? Silence from the club as usual.

Is the wicket a green seamer? It was obviously a red herring to include two spinners in the squad with no intention of playing them.

Another century for Kai Smith.