Window Cleaner

What a shîte bowler Wheal is. Why isn't Fuller bowling?

Hants look very flat today, then again so does the wicket. No Abbott either. Looks like 4 very uninteresting days.

I don't think that there's any problem with keeping Fuller, think he signed on for another year back in June. I see that Liam Dawson was the most economic of England's bowlers in the T20 in Pakistan yesterday 4 overs for 26, didn't get a bat. Some of the others got absolutely hammered in Pakistan's 10 wicket win, a rarety in T20 cricket I believe. Looks as if Glos and Warks will be going down to D2 for next season. As Warks won the CC last season that's some come-down for them. Don't think much has changed in their line-up, just that players haven't performed as well as they did last season. Think we need to be a bit wary of that next year, some of the bowling hasn't been all that good at odd times this season and they're not getting any younger. To me, and I've watched the streams a lot, there's a lack of accuracy at times that gives the batters a chance to get in. Barker and Fuller being the main culprits there. They take wickets to be sure but they sometimes give away free runs, mainly behind the wicket. At times on wednesday last, Vince just didn't know what to do to stop the flow of runs through the gully-third man region. If he put in a 3rd man the bowlers allowed shots through the gully, if there was a deep gully they went through 3rd man. Glos have just collapsed. When I watched a stream on their site, their chairman (or whatever) was waffling on about building the side and striving for excellence etc , obviously doesn't watch a lot of their games then, them having won just 1 game out of 13 so far. I see that there's a new performance plan to beat Australia and other national sides. To me that's just complete tripe. The way to win test matches isn't by reducing county championship matches in number. It's probably playing less international series all of the time. To me plenty of fine young cricketers are being lost to gig cricket. Look at Weatherly this season. Signed on for the Brave, no doubt made plenty out of it and didn't get a single game, that's not the way to improve our test standard. It's easy money and possibly makes them lazy. I seem to remember Banton being talked of of being the next big star a couple of years back, think he hardly plays first class cricket nowadays, too busy gleaning money from gig and short format cricket.

I don't think you can say so and so hasn't performed well. The trouble is that on 3 occasions they've collectively failed dismally. Plus on two of those occasions the bowlers let the opposition off of the hook a bit as well. Why even yesterday we dropped a couple of catches, the culprits being pretty reliable fielders usually. We need to sort out the spinner situation, if Crane isn't of any use in 4 day cricket to us then we'd as well let him move on, because yesterday we needed a real spinner.

Ah zut, I've just seen that he goes back to Surrey next season. Missed the boat there then. What do Surrey need with another opener ?

Although I have no idea whatsoever concerning his contract status, if Warks go down, as they probably will if we beat them next week, I might think that Sibley is just the sort of opener we need. Got over his bad patch and is now scoring runs again on a pretty regular basis.

Surrey are going to win anyway so it probably doesn't really matter all that much. However, our season has been blighted by three shockingly bad, first innings batting performances and if we've any pretentions of winning the County Championship before our 3 main bowlers become less effective then we just have to eradicate these batting disasters. That would mean, in my opinion anyway, signing a tenacious opening batter and relegating Holland to the second XI and 1 day cricket as a consequence. I don't think Donald is going to make the grade as a 4 day batter, probably replace him with Prest.

Pity we managed to lose 2 wickets in the last few overs of the day though.

With Yorks having to follow on against Surrey, what we do here probably doesn't make much difference in the title race anyway.

Hmmm, Kent don't look to be in too much difficulty this morning. A few balls that have beaten the bat but they're scoring a few runs nevertheless.

T'is an already used wicket apparently. Obviously too much cricket at the Aegeas this summer. Need to sort that out for next year. More out grounds perhaps, couldn't say where though.

So Kent 20/3 at stumps. Shouldn't get too excited about that yet though because 2 of the 3 were lower order nightwatch.. err people (or is it nightwatchers in inclusive speak?). Did get Compton though. We just need to skittle them for less than 100 and knock off the 200 or so runs needed to win. Still no batting points though.

Does that make our performance better in some way or other then? We were playng the title and we've blown it on the first day of 4. Lancashire and Essex are playing for nothing whatsoever, whatever happens there makes absolutely no difference.

Wow! What a debacle. 57 all out. Need to sack the groundskeeper for this snorter of a wicket😚 . All they did was bowl quick'ish and straight'ish and we just folded. just unbelievable really.

Belay my last. 100 would be a good score for us here. The inevitable batting shambles just when we don't need it. The "committee" need to apply themselves this winter to obtain a solid batter who's got the technique to see off fast, accurate, new ball bowling on a regular basis.

Terrible start to our innings as well. As I was saying the other day, maximum batting points looks a tall order. As it is now, 200-250 would probably be a good score for us here.

Good start for Hants, Kent 2 down already. Donald keeping again it would seem, not risking Brown's finger perhaps. He's in the side though, just to bat I suppose.

Indeed, I seem to remember David O'Sulllivan playing a major part in the 73 win. Sainsbury took a good few as well, completing the work of the front line bowlers and the fabulous batting. O'Sullivan was a slow left armer, often really useful when the ball is doing nothing at all. This is why the loss of Dawson chagrins me so much. Good job we're only playing Kent and Warks because real quality batters would go to town on our part time spinners and Crane.

Maximum bonus points eh, that means scoring over 400 in the first innings twice over. Think we may have to be satisfied with about 45 points from the two games, and that's a tall enough order with the weather for the second fortnight of September. I think though that losing Dawson to some silly asian bash or other may be a handicap for us. Surrey may even get a few test players back.

Surrey don't look at all interested. So that will be a draw then. Going into the last 2 games there'll be an eight point advantage for Surrey and they can't win more matches than us.

Won't get them. Game will end with about 20 overs to go. Unless there's some really silly batting and Surrey slump to about 60 for 5.

Oh no they aren't😐

Looks like Surrey would need at least 300 from at most 50 overs. 6 an over is a big ask, especially if you'd not want to lose. Looks pretty cloudy so I'd doubt if they'll even get all of the scheduled overs in.

Nothing much to hope for from the Surrey game. Northants bowling is pretty poor, as we saw last week really . They did have Surrey at 80/4 yesterday but now Surrey are about to move into a first innings lead. Why do poor, average seamers keep bowling short to big hitters like Curran ? It's just free, quick runs. Best issue for us now looks to be a draw with maximum bonus points for Surrey, leaving them 8 points ahead with 2 matches to play for each side. No Dawson for Hants though so that's an extra bummer.

Not too bad though. Northants 157/3 last time I looked. Gay looks to be an excellent opener. Don't think Northants will be able to hold on to him for very long.