wadesmith

This forum has become a miserable, soul sucking place to be. I'm not even a regular here, but when I do log on it's the same miserable names, giving the same miserable opinions. The sad thing is I'm sure if I met them in real life there probably nice blokes/girls....or maybe not...god knows.

Good thinking by Hampshire's bowlers. Wearing the Surrey batsmen down in these humid conditions by forcing them to rung between the wickets lots of time and excerting energy hitting boundaries. Meanwhile we wait for them to flag and hit them where it hurts.

There's a problem with the Cricinfo website. It says Hampshire are 298 for 3. I've sent them a strongly worded email.

Yeah, trouble is like last time we need results, therefore any negotiations will tend to go in the favour of the team who don't really need the result and would be happy with a draw. Anyway i'm getting ahead of myself, both teams will probably be happy to play out a draw.

I'm guessing the answers 'No' but do you think theres any chance of a manufactured result here? Durham let us smash another 160 before lunch, leave them about 250 in two sessions. Mark Nicholas would have sweet talked them into it...and then unleashed Marshall. Of course this was before two divisions.

I actually believe this may discourage players from signing for us. Terrible decision from management.

Wheaters actually part of today's Dad's Army! He's bring the average age down to about 39. You may be right, we may possibly be able to rebuild in the first division. Part of me just thinks if This bunch of mediocrities stays up what does it say for the state of championship cricket. Saying that there are some positive signs Alsop & Crane particularly.

I'm being serious when I say this, but i'm not sure staying up would be the best thing for the club. Going down may cause the club to have a year zero approach and a complete re-think about our structure and player policy, whereas if we stay up we may just cling on to the same old players hoping to hang-in for another year. Part of me thinks that staying up last year may have been the worst thing to happen to the club. I don't know i'm a bit conflicted at the moment. if we go down then a can't imagine there would be any financial implications and at worst we may lose Vince, who we don't see anyway. I mean 8 players over 33, that not good win or lose.

One of the most uninspiring looking Hampshire bowling line-ups i've ever seen. Eight of our players our over 33 years old, I think this is a record.

Last game of the season.

I remember a semi-final we lost on the last ball against Northants. I think it was 1990?. Malcolm Marshall won man of the match, but wouldn't come out to collect it as he was too upset Can't imagine Afridi or Sammy reacting the same way, but quite honestly who would expect them to. There flown in for a few games, they can't feel any attachment to the club. It all feels a bit artificial.

Oops except Afridi isn't playing?!

I'm actually not too dismayed at the squad Wheater is ok, Dawson is batting well, Tino is a lottery, Afridi & Sammy are potentially explosive. Surrey have one the toss, I am slightly fearful we could be looking at 210. I'm glad Mason is in. God knows how this will go, 20/20 is such a lottery.

Missing Carberry, Vince, Topley, Woods and i've of course let Briggs go. Let's face it one of the reasons we have had such success in the 20/20 in last 6 years is because we've had good players who were'nt quite good enough to called up for England, therefore we've had a stable solid squad.

He's younger than Ranieri. That's good enough for me!

Mate it was a joke.

Loyalty?... you ****ed off to Fort Lauderdale!!!..don't talk to me about loyalty.

He's refering to Ronaldo's Champions League celebration. My 3 years of Portuguese lessons were not wasted!

Probably a bit harsh on Wheater he's scored 300 runs at almost 40 an innings this year. I'd probably keep Ervine. I agree with Carbs, Adams and Smith. Great players, but possibly time to go. I imagine they realise this, they all seem pretty honest stand-up guys. A lot resting on our younger players. I'm not sure if Vince leaving would be a disaster. If he's contracted to England we won't see much of him anyway.

Middlesex played into our hands. 333 for 3. That's triple Nelson. That's got to be unlucky. In for the kill lads.

Two batsmen in at the moment who have been scoring for fun recently, this could go either way!

What a joke. Pathetic.

I feel like I got this a bit wrong. Turns out the wickets may not be as flat as I first thought. Either that or I was right and we're just ****.

Can't dispute that, but I'm saying that clubs are preparing safer wickets on that basis that they may get put into bat. The ruling has scared clubs into preparing anything apart from flat wickets.

Don't quite agree. At this time of year theres always a lot of rain and you normally have more results than this. If you look at the natioanal batting averages it would suggest batting is a pretty simple this year. Even Hampshire have five batsmen with current averages over 40! The bottom line is wickets are definitely playing easier, loads of 400 plus scores.