Not sure if Moeen would want to come back. He was dying to leave first time around and he would only play in the one-day games. In my opinion he is a lightweight who is never happy unless everything is just his way, one minute he is retiring from Tests and now we hear that he would like to be considered for section again because he suddenly likes the new set up. Well that being the case, shouldn't he be playing in the CC for Worcestershire. Sibley was getting nowhere at Surrey and we gave him a lifeline, not sure if I believe that he would want to leave already.

I loved the way Davies decided to drop anchor and bat time when wickets fell and as soon as he found someone to stick around Burgess/Briggs/Brookes (Should we employ more players who's surname starts with 'B'), he started to open up and it was a refreshing attitude which has put us in a good position. The pitch looks a bit dead but I suppose 30 wickets falling in 3 days suggests we could win, we are slight favourites and so much better to watch than the game v Northamptonshire on a lump of concrete which wouldn't have produced a result in 10 days.

Just seen an article on the BBC Cricket website 'What's wrong with this season's cricket balls', there was a lot of looking at the balls in both days of this game and it doesn't seem to make a difference if it's a low or high scoring game.

I love Norwell's attitude to bowling. He pounds in off the same run up without any thought to shortening it or slowing his pace down, he keeps on and is relentless. He made a huge difference and it will be an interesting game if we don't make a mess of things tomorrow. Quite surprised at Croft's innings, he was scoring at about 66/100 balls but as he was running out of partners, he didn't try and get on with it and slowed down and in the end when he decided to push it on a bit, he got out. Glad he did because he has punished us a few time before.

Well spotted GS. I often do that when 2 letters are next to each other. I do love my team but I don't think I have cried over them (Even in the 1980's) yet. You will have me worried now and checking for every word to make sure I don't make more mistakes.

A few of us on here did wonder a few tears ago that as his first-class game was so good, would playing one-day cricket change him. He then became a superb one-day player but then he suffered in the CC. Now over the last few years, he has been solid in all formats. Does England await, great for him to get picked but then again, I would really miss seeing him play for us.

Pity about the last 15 overs as I thought we might get 350+. Hain was brilliant again but Yates looks so different to last year and looked like a club player being given his first taste of CC cricket. A few bad shots with the bat leave me feeling we could be about 80-100 runs short.

Yes LE, it happened with Neil Carter all those years ago when you had the feeling that he could get out in the first 2 overs at any stage and eventually they did drop him down the order. In the very big game like finals and semi-finals, he never get us off to great starts which is why so many of them were close games.

I would like to think Stone could play and bowl him in short bursts. Not sure what the Norwell situation is but we need some oomph up front with the new ball but if Stone goes on like this and does not take much of a role in CC games then we will start to wonder what the future holds as he has been permanently injured since we signed him many years ago. What we don't want is medium paced opening bowling on what we presume will be a good batting strip and Lancashire winning the toss and batting for 5 sessions.

Awful and I am annoyed about getting there early from work to get somewhere near to park and then waiting for it to start, only to watch us self-destruct. Another Stirling duck, Bethel is opening for what reason, Brathwaite is too low in the order as is Briggs, since when are Miles, Lintott or Stone better batsmen than him. Poor shot selection and the pitch was fine and a missed opportunity to try and get a few points between ourselves and the other side near us but now it is all very close in the group.

He hit 158* and it was unbelievable to watch but as you say, not much after that. I think someone should point out to him that you don't have to hit the first ball to the boundary.

Exiled Bear wrote:

I'm not very impressed with the Durham commentary. They made out that Benjamin had cheated by stopping the ball when touching the rope, but you could clearly see on the stream that it was fine.
Never mind, we will give them the best medicine by winning and at the moment, it looks very, very simple.

LeicesterExile wrote:

Paul I am watching it on You Tube from the start
I shall do that then, cheers LE.

Would love to be watching it but on the site it just keeps telling me that the live stream will appear when the match starts even though it did so 20 minutes ago.

It did seem strange at the time that Patel was batting that low anyway and then once he gets to the crease as a man known for being a good finisher, he is tactically removed so that a bloke who hasn't faced a ball, can come in and try and win it off the last ball.

Just replayed the last ball that Patel faced and the one we were penalised for and it is 50/50 as to whether or not it was over waist height/ I wouldn't want to be the umpire who gives that but I suppose in a semi/final, you would be able to have another look at it. Well done to all the hardy souls who stayed to watch.

11-12 degrees and a 10% chance of rain but it looks horrible outside and I am not going. There was a thought when I got up that having played so badly in the last2 games, I would settle for an abandonment especially against Notts who are not exactly pushovers.

Not only that, is he batting too low in the order so that by the time he come in, he has too much to do or does not get to face enough balls batting where he does. We have to look at the best way for us to win games and at the moment, it looks like batting first so 'Doing a Grant Elliott' and deciding to bowl is not a good option. Typical of our neighbours to win their first against us after 4 defeats.

Looking as though we will chase 200+ so it begs the question, why did we put them into bat as history says you might as well bat first and we made a mess of chasing down 153 yesterday.

Brooks, Lintott, Miles and Briggs, a total of 9 runs from 18 balls tells it's own story. Why wasn't Briggs up higher, his big hitting in the championship decider last year should have given our management a bit of a clue as to where he should bat. Cannot believe our batting scoring rate in the first 3 games and here we cannot even chase down 153 to win.