Window Cleaner

So Durham in September, might be a tall order for us. Toss would be important. I think there are some England South Africa short format games at that epoque so we might be robbed of Dawson and won't probably be able to get our South Africans back. Still not at all bad to make the play-off stage. As a general comment on the T20 blast overall this season, I've been a bit surprised about the general poor quality of the bowling in most of the teams I've seen. Some of it is just destined to be hit over the boundaries, too short, too wide, a lot of full tosses. Seems that good bowlers avoid T20 nowadays. Sussex the other day were particularly poor, don't know if they have injuries or international calls but it was Club standard. Mind you batting has evolved, a few years back 160 was about par, now it would seem to be 180+.

Well, the game was always finely balanced. No one feat turned it either way, just a combination of events. Currie's catch could have won it for us but they hit a couple of sixes when they really needed to.

How has this come about? Well in my humble opinion, nepotism and cost cutting would be likely candidates. We have players,, perhaps other staff as well who contribute sfa and no doubt get paid at the end of the month.

Oh, well played Sirs, a mere 458 behind on the first innings. Zero batting points. Perhaps the problem isn't the ball but the bowlers using it.

Never mind, we're getting a look at our full range of part-time bowlers.

Problem of fixed term contracts in every sector. Employment law in most countries allows you to start your research for a new job in the last 6 months of any fixed tem contract. Some countries even let you take a lot of time off to attend interviews etc.

Not really a question of relegation. We just seem so disorganised this season. Minor changements seem to throw us out of sync so easily, like our T20 campaign so far. But what irks me most is our tendency to try to shoe in players who are long past their useful shelf life all of the time. Weatherly, Organ, Wood should all be long gone let alone playing. There's also the question young players not really progressing. Still season is half over, roll on next season.

Why is Fuller bowling? It's just free runs for Essex. What is the point of Organ exactly? Not bowling and he's a bit part batter at best. There must be someone more appropriate in the group of players. I am beginning to doubt Brown's captaincy to be honest.

Essex look to be trying to bat out the majority of the day. Might be a borefest as our bowlers don't look to be getting any sort of help from the pitch.

Ah scrub that. only 10 Hampshire players on the cricinfo list. Tilly plays.

So, it seems that Essex have chosen to bat first. According to Cricinfo the new overseas batter and Turner didn't make the starting 11. two spinners included. Turner isn't going to make the grade is he !

Right, back to the serious stuff today. Championship cricket. Erkk Chelmsford, no doubt a Harmer special wicket has been prepared. Some changes apparent in our 13. seems no Stoneman or Wheal, Barker not yet requalified I suppose. Jack and Orr get their chance perhaps.

WTF is this batting ?? One shot wonders and yet another caught heaving over midwicket. Must be concentrating on the One Day cup, at least there'll be real cricketers.

As I said, totally predictable, the old heave-ho over midwicket.

The commentators, Somerset people I think, kept on about our bowling tactics, said they were incomprehensible. Vince plays shots, the two south Africans, whilst good to watch, err don't, long handle short format stuff, which is what you need I suppose. But a decent captain can set a field that will get them eventually. Anyway, until we fix the bowling we won't have much chance against the better sides. Will probably win against Gloucs this evening though.

I've watched all 4 games so far, mostly pretty good stuff. Yesterday we struggled with their Power Play bowlers, who it must be said bowled pretty well, pinned us down. Our bowling was lacklustre yesterday because on that sort of wicket and short boundary, seamers are going to get hit if they stray off line by a nanometer or so. We lacked a tidy bowler for yesterday's conditions and 177 wasn't enough.

Indeed excellent bowling by Currie. I see that the two South African batters are called up for their series against Zimbabwe, end of juin I think. Will that leave us 2 batters short for the T20?

I suspect that the players know that it's not good enough. The question being can they do anything about it. For me it's roughly the same situation as the football, when the players aren't good enough then there's not much that they can do about it really. From my point of view, we're trying to run on a low cost basis and haven't recruited better players for some reason or other. I'm all for giving home grown a chance but some of them get more chances than others. We've shipped out players as useful as Middleton, Prest and Albert without a second thought so something's not quite right there. Also the Barker situation isn't helping, although as a bit of an oldie I don't know how performant he'll be after a year out of first class cricket. Perhaps he'll play some white ball, doesn't usually. Yet again another Bank Holiday Monday goes by with no cricket, can't be good for the finances.

Well I don't think you can compare Abbas and Baker anyway. To see Wheal opening the bowling saddens me, he is just a plug away average seamer who'll always be a bit part player in any respectable side. Turner needs to be told to stop bowling short, good pace, but it's oft so wild. The batting is a catastrophy, any decent seamer who can bowl straight and pitched up will as likely as not destroy us. As I've said before, we need change from the top down.

Something is evidently radically wrong at the club. Perhaps they've all got some virus or other but I'd doubt that. The dropped catches, the wild bowling apart from Abbott and the shaky batting and village green shots isn't just a coincidence in my view.

To me Prest looks like a Vince bis, just can't resist a swish against wide balls. The rest is just undisciplined rubbish right now, club needs a total shake-up, starting with White and the head coach.

T20. What we need right now is a bowler, our bowling is lamentable this morning. Prest not helping once again by dropping a routine catch in the deep. We'll lose here unless the weather intervenes.

Doesn't look a particularly difficult thing to do though. Technique against accurate bowling sorely lacking. Abbas isn't even that fast, but it's straight and not short. Think we might even be asked to follow on.

Depends on the new owners I suppose. From what was said by the commentary team today, it would seem that the affaires are still being run by the old team until about October. Wheal opening the bowling says cut priced affair to me.

Well, as we wasted a goodly part of the advantages given by the new ball and the helpful wicket this morning, we are now paying the price. Two of the dropped catches were just ordinary, don't miss those. Wicket for Abbott, umpire couldn't refuse that one, probably tried though.