And just a beautiful six from Norwell! Lots happening this morning.

Yep I called today about disabled parking and was told it was first come first serve. Seems a bit off, if they are all taken I guess I’ll be dropping my dad off and parking elsewhere to walk in.

It’s little things like this that can grate as a member.

That is true he is being paid a terrific amount, when I listened to his interview on the Bears Podblast (incidentally a very entertaining listen) he did seem quite frustrated with it all even if he clearly couldn’t say anything too disparaging.

Nonetheless I’m very much looking to seeing whoever plays over the next (hopefully) four days. It’s been too long!

It must be tough being Chris Woakes, travelling around the world to carry the drinks and not play much cricket. I’m not going to say his talent has been wasted by any stretch, his trophy cabinet and career stats testify against that, but it’s hard not to wonder what might have been had he been around in a different era.

The statement being that we don’t score many first innings runs!?

There is something to admire about backing players in certain positions however I like the look of the batting suggested by bald_reynard. A couple of all rounders lower down the order and allow batsmen to focus on batting alone. We shouldn’t expect Bresnan and Rhodes to bowl all day but being able to bring them in and out should be a good tactic. It just so happens that Rhodes has the best average for us at the moment (I believe looking at the BBC).

Rhodes out early again, at the moment he has a touch of the Ian Bell when he is at the crease. He looks comfortable and then gets out.

Let's hope he can keep kicking on, he certainly seems ahead of Brookes in the pecking order right now. It's a big show of faith with the contract after only a couple of decent performances.

Two centuries in an innings, it feels like that hasn’t happened for a while (I’m sure someone will correct me). Great effort by Burgess.

I think honours even is a fair analysis.

Hopefully we can get to 300+ this morning. It would nice to see Burgess get a big score to hopefully give him the confidence to crack in for the rest of the season.

With the weather forecast I think we need to try and get as many bonus points as possible.

Well I would say a decent day, but probably a couple of wickets too many fell for it to have been truly our day.

Kudos to Yates and it was good to see Burgess make some runs.

Rhodes does seem to struggle for runs at the start of the season for some reason. I remember a couple of seasons ago him and Sibley laid some great foundations for the team, especially towards the end of the season.

It’s a shame Sibley got injured but he was not in great form after the winter so his confidence would have been low. Things could have been different had factors been different, but we need to deal with what we have.

Yates is learning a lot, and seems to be growing so I am excited to see how he develops over the next couple of seasons.

When you think we didn’t win a match last year then progress has definitely been made.

I really hope the new coaching set up can help sort out our continued batting fragility soon. I think the thinking behind the overseas deals shows that they have highlighted this as an area to be improved.

Briggs was a bit expensive this morning I felt. Surprised that neither Miles nor Bresnan was given the ball even for just a couple of overs.

Let’s hope our batsmen have a better session than the first!

It seems to have been a bad toss to lose. Durham have been showing signs of improvement this year as well with some good recruitment.

I don’t think being optimistic, I think the game has gone from us (I’d love to be proved wrong though).

I just want the team to battle, look for small victories during the rest of the match and not capitulate.

Every team has bad days and games that don’t go the way they were planned but that is not an excuse for giving up. We have seen character in the past two games and I want to see the same with this one.

Learn the lessons and make progress.

A flying pig or two would be good to see as well!

Well, it’s a new day and a new opportunity.

We have shown a lot of character over the past couple of matches so I am hoping to see the same today. It’s not going to be straightforward as the weather looks mixed in Durham today.

If we can bowl them out today with a lead not too excessive that would be a good effort. There is a lot of time left in this match, we need to keep our heads up.

I’m not disagreeing with you, however it is not his fault it’s more of a team management decision to try and bring someone in once it was clear Malian was not going to be available for the start of the season.

I would say his half century in the second innings against Essex was very important though.

It’s a day like this when it’s a shame that the overseas pro hasn’t been able to spend a good amount of pre season with the squad or have much experience of playing county cricket.

I’m in no way blaming the teams batting on Vihari, circumstances have dictated his time with us, but when an experienced and calm head was needed sadly we didn’t have one.

I think today we have to accept that we were second best on all fronts.

BristolBear wrote:

I do appreciate that, but I suppose my issue is that if you’re going to rest them, rest them all in the same round. Otherwise you could end up having hypothetically (all being fit and available) the Roses match and Yorkshire have to rest Bess, Bairstow and Root, but Anderson and Butler can play for Lancashire.
I know fitness and availability effect this, but if they said all fit ECB bowlers can play rounds 2, 3 & 5. Everyone knows where they stand, if a player isn’t fit for then, so be it. But I suppose it’s a case of the ECB comes first.

I agree it is odd and a trifle unfair to think that some counties have their ECB players whilst others don’t.

On the other hand we may see Norwell steaming in and matching Raine and we wouldn’t notice that Stone is not here.

This is the issue the counties have with the ECB players. I wonder whether I’ll ever see Chris Woakes play for us again live.

BristolBear wrote:

It’s absolutely bizarre to watch. Briggs got one that popped. Burgess’ looked like it went below his bat whilst playing forward. Bresnan played a long way inside it. Hain left it. I’d get it if they were all edging behind but so many bowled and LBWs is odd. Even the way the watch was offered was odd.

One another note however, I do have to ask, why in the same game do we have to rest our England fast bowler, but Durham can play theirs? I understand load management and the ECB will be sending down orders, but seems a bit unfair.

The difference I believe is that Stone has played two games in a row for us and this is Woods first appearance for Durham.