Window Cleaner

Indeed a good day. Holland did a real opener's job and Dawson did well. Some quick runs from Brown and Fuller at the end to get us 4 batting points. It's just a bit of a concern that our early batting is so brittle against decent swing bowling, there was absolutely no need whatsoever for Vince and Gubbins to play those shots yesterday. Organ is too green and needs to be replaced . Hopefully we'll be able to go on and win by Thursday. Don't think Surrey will win, probably just get 5 batting point and the draw, so we'll make up 9 points on them if all goes to plan.

Well that was a vain hope. Hants 24/2. Warks' bowlers getting more out of the wicket than we did.

Warks 217 all out. Not bad considering that the wicket looks pretty flat. They made a few runs after the fall of the 7 wicket though, couple of dropped chances, pretty difficult ones apparently; 5 fer for Abbott again. Hoping we get a good start and don't get out to dubious looking shots as some of the Warks batters did.

So unless we've ditched one of the Aussies before final's day, Abbas having time off would seem purely economic. Most other counties seem to do about the same anyway. Not Surrey though seemingly, the instant Pollard got injured they replaced him with another overseas players. Didn't do them much good for their last couple of T20 games though. Hants bowling first today, Warks won the toss, must fancy the wicket then.

Bear's NRR comes from 2 monster wins against Northants and Worcs. Both sides only scored about 80 whereas the Bears made big scores, obviously batting first. They beat Northants by about 120 in what looks like a 16 over game and Worcs by about 140 in a regular 20 over affair. No wonder they haf such a positive NRR. The rest of their games the scores look fairly even. We have every chance as long as our openers get us off to a decent start and Wheal and Fuller don't concede as many runs as they did yesterday. What's the score with Ellis? Was he rested, injured or some sort of availabily problem with the Australian board ?

We'll be 4th, play against the Bears at Egbaston in the quarters. Essex are playing Glamorgan I think and even though Somerset play Surrey our NRR is too low to hope to go past them, even if they lose. Unless of course Somerset get a real drubbing, but I don't see that happening. Still Hants are something of the form team of the moment, won 8 out of the last 9.

Fuller saves us again !

Wicket is obviously a bit of a dog , difficult to bat on. Glos now 6 down and behind the rate.

Oh dear, what a pity, never mind. We can get shot of the two aussies and get another overseas player in for the Championship matches.

Probably because the current spate of cases are due to the BA4 and 5 sub-variants, the science bods say previous infection and vaccinations don't have much effect on those. Another "present" from South Africa apparently.

Wow, what a disaster. Chose to bat first and we'll be lucky to make a hundred.

Looks like Kent are going to hold out for a draw against Surrey, so 16 points would have put us..........well I suppose there's no point going on about it now, especially as there's no sort of review process for travesties like some of the umpiring in our game.

Probably shouldn't have. All that rififi with the ball seemed to work in the favour of Essex and I thought, although you can't tell perfectly from the stream, that we got a couple of bad umpiring decisions again. Sooner or later there'll have to be a review process in County Cricket, thought Dawson and Brown were hard done by, to the contrary of their tubby chap yesterday, not given when he looked plumb in front.

Thrown it away we have.

Openers got us to 97 without loss, then Organ was out. Fuller bumped up the order to rough the spinner up a bit, and no doubt soften the ball a bit more.

As they gave the new ball to a seamer at one end and Harmer at t'other, the new ball presents less of a problem pace wise. Didn't look too wobbly in the final overs but that's probably more by luck than judgement. Now if we could get to say a hundred or so with only one down, things might look a bit different. We only need about one and a half an over so just no silly shots and let's see what happens.

So at lunch Essex are 120 ahead with 3 wickets down, 2 to Organ and one, with the last ball before lunch, to Dawson. A bit of hitting from our late middle order managed to restrict the Essex lead to 75. Trouble is, the wicket looks to be turning irregularily and any target over 175 we might restrict them to could be hard to get. Two and a half days of rain all down the eastern side of England might be our best option.

Our annual Chelmsford train-wreck.

Well, that's not good. Essex got far more than they should have, because we're lacking a fast bowler, and we're now 34/3, probably because we're lacking a real opener. Stupid way to get out James.

Good start for Hants, Essex 5 down at lunch. As far as the Championship is concerned we'll need to make a big score when we bat because Surrey already have 133 on the board at Lunch and are probably heading for maximum batting points again. Championship could well be decided by bonus points and deductions for slow over rate, of which we already have had 2 points deducted.

Toss lost, bowling first. No Abbas again, I think they said at the last 4 day game that he was back in Pakistan for a while, these 2 games, and then should be available for the rest of the Div 1 season.

Don't think we need to win the last two, just need to beat Gloucester in thec return game next week. Two wins might give us a better chance in the quarters though.

Good game again.

Mc Dermott certainly hasn't lived up to his reputation---so far anyway. I thought Prest did pretty well yesterday evening as well. After that players were coming in when we were already on a big score and tried to hit everything from their first ball onwards, seemed to happen that way to Somerset as well, after Banton and Roussouw had gone.

Or perhaps not, seeing as Somerset have sort of collapsed.