stevegrant

8 down

Our part of the bargain fulfilled, all eyes on Yorkshire.

Intrigued that Sussex have decided that Chris Jordan is now an opening batsman... 2 down now

Worth noting the outstanding contributions of our new bowling recruits this summer: Fidel Edwards, 45 wickets in 8 CC games - if he'd been fit and available for every game and kept that record up, he'd finish the season with 90 wickets, which would have been comfortably the best in the country, and we almost certainly wouldn't be in a final-day shootout to stay up. Gareth Berg, 42 wickets in 16 games, plus 5 fifties with the bat - 672 runs in total. Some weird performances with the bat this year, Carberry has scored 1000 runs without a single century (9 fifties), and what's particularly noticeable among the whole squad is the high strike rate, which suggests that perhaps our one-day game has influenced the longer form a bit too much in relation to the standard we're up against - it's alright to go at that pace against Division Two attacks, but against the much better top-flight bowlers, it doesn't work so well. Of the 12 players whose overall batting records are decent enough to be classed as a batsman (or all-rounder), only 4 had strike rates below 50 this year - surprisingly, one of those is Carberry!

Fortunately we don't have somebody unilaterally making signings on behalf of the club anymore, so the likelihood of those sort of signings slipping through the net are significantly reduced.

Teams through this evening: Aston Villa, Stoke, Hull, Leicester, Middlesbrough, Man City, Everton, Bournemouth.

Never understood the point of the nigh****chman - which batsman is most likely to be able to see out the rest of the day, a tailender or the specialist batsman?

:lol: :lol:

Ultimately, they were champions with three games to spare for a reason. We batted pretty well, but the weather has forced our hand here.

Solent suggesting there might be a contrived result today with Yorkshire declaring first thing - presumably would mean us forfeiting our second innings rather than enforcing the follow-on, leaving a chase of 304 in a day.

One hell of an effort in the last 15 overs or so, got to 400 with nearly 2 overs to spare! Maximum batting bonus points, I think for the first time this season. Very timely as well considering Sussex also got maximum points - is there an argument for wanting a Sussex win in their game against Somerset so we've got one target in reach rather than two slightly further away going into the final game? If Somerset were bowled out below 200 and lost, they'd be on 149 points, while 3 bowling points for us and a draw would leave us one point adrift of them. Not over yet, by any means...

I find it interesting how there is always so much whinging about the lack of singing, and yet if all of the people doing the whinging were at the game, why didn't you do anything about it? Nobody has exclusivity on being allowed to start songs. People seem to want to complain about other fans more than they want to support the team themselves at times. Perfect example in Denmark, handful of ****ed-up lads next to me, spent the ENTIRE 90 minutes slagging off everyone else, singing "our support is ****ing ****", and yet if they'd started a single proper song everyone would have joined in. As it was, all they (rightly, IMO) got was a volley of abuse.

If only we could have put that second innings batting performance on in the first innings, the bonus points we could have got (and limited Somerset's bowling points) might prove to be the difference between staying up and going down. I see the Yorkshire game is on TV this week...

Yes, hopefully, but a lot depends on when the fixtures are. There are only 6 other current PL teams with fans teams: Man City, Man United, Stoke, Watford, West Brom, West Ham. West Ham have already said they'll come down for the game in February, TV pending, and I'm sure West Brom will return this weekend's fixture in January. Watford will probably come down at the end of the season, as the home game against them is midweek, and they're at Bournemouth the day we're at Chelsea so can't play it that day instead. Man United tend not to travel outside of the north-west so frankly I can't be arsed organising a game at their place if they're not going to make the effort to come to us in return - they claim they struggle to get enough tickets for everyone, but there's always ways and means to do it. Stoke and Man City, no idea whether they'll travel or not.

It would be the perfect venue, if nobody had paid the £50 in the first place and the away end was completely empty, but people won't make that sacrifice (and I include myself in that). As it is, the message is "we'd like cheaper tickets, but we'll carry on paying your ridiculous prices anyway", unfortunately.

Nope.

Playing for a 0-0 then

Still looking for a few more players to play on Saturday morning in Smethwick against West Brom's fans team, 10:30 kick off at Hadley Stadium in Smethwick (B66 4ND). Please get in touch if you fancy a game.

At first-class level, yeah, I'd agree. Past it on the Test stage these days, but that works in our favour as his availability increases - I wonder if the Aussie selectors might do away with him in the ODI side over the next year or so as well, you wouldn't expect Watson to still be in the side come the next World Cup. Might have to get some special small pads manufactured for him though

Who is this lad Stevenson? Just seen he's 23 and been plucked from Devon in recent weeks, how come he's been thrown straight into the first XI? Seems to have done pretty well, mind you...

I'm assuming that, if he was working through each club in alphabetical order, he was probably just bored by the time he got to us so couldn't be arsed to come up with anything remotely insightful. Hopefully he was frothing at the mouth over the inactivity of Arsenal

I think that seems to be more to do with the bigger (i.e. Test-hosting) counties generally being in Division 1 these days, and therefore more able to pay the bigger salaries commanded by players on the fringes of the England setup but not quite good enough to get a central contract.

It was, but I think keepers get a bit of a head start with his free kicks these days - I'm struggling to think of an occasion where he's not attempted to put the ball over the wall (to the left corner when the ball is left-of-centre, and the right corner when the ball is to the right), so the keeper can effectively "cheat" the set piece by taking a starting step or two behind the wall in anticipation. I'd like to see him go with a bit more power to the other side every now and then - he'll probably look a bit silly if it just drops straight into the keeper's hands, but it at least maintains a bit of mystery as to where he's trying to put the ball.

Must admit I'm often underwhelmed by JWP's contribution on the pitch, but he was excellent yesterday. Fair to say there won't be many teams in this league who afford him that much time and space, though.

Yeah, no seat reservations possible on the regional connection, just the intercity.