Window Cleaner

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.

Wouldn't we need better bowling for that? Banton and Roussow have put Somerset into an excellent position. T20 campaign about over.

Pretty grim viewing today. Yorks made over 400 and now both of our openers are gone with just 12 on the board.

Good batting from the openers, could have won inside 10 overs had not McDermott got out with just a few needed. Wheal still getting spanked but at least we're not playing Crane any more. Wood, Fuller and Dawson OK, don't think Ellis played, didn't bowl for sure, Currie and Prest a little too expensive.

Some better batting from the openers, the rest about usual. Still, made 199/6. Pity there's no stream to watch it on today. Suppose that's because we're the only T20 game this evening and Sky or something have the monopoly. Any sort of reasonable bowling should get us our first T20 win of the season.

Interesting (or not?) theory expounded by the Surrey commentators on the live stream yesterday evening. Seemed to think that we've spent a lot of money on our Championship side this season and are going all in to try to win it, having failed by a point last season and it being 50 years (is that right ?) since our last County Championship title. treating the Blast as a bit of a secondary event. Don't know how true this might be but it's alright by me, Championship cricket being the true form of the game with the others and all their ancilliary face painting and stuff being just a form of filling the club coffers.

Well, we might get at least half, but 'tis true we've been given a right old tonking. Why are we bowling Crane and Prest? That's just asking for trouble really.

Don't need to understand any theories to work out what's wrong with Hants T20 campaign so far. We don't score enough runs in the power play, play silly shots thereafter and bowl abysmally . We are using second string bowlers to give them a game. Then again Dawson got absolutely hammered at the end of his spell yesterday, probably because he's bowling on a wicket where there's nothing for him. Wood wasn't great in the first two games but Curry was abysmal, as were Wheal and Crane. Ellis at least didn't get hammered but then again he only bowled two overs. Beginning to wonder if Vince is really up to the captain's job in T20 cricket. Think we may need to change the batting order for the next T20 joust, Weatherly to open with McDermott, Donald at 3, Vince at 4.

Well, that was another horror show. The batting is extremely poor but the bowling just defies any sort of hope. Unless we can use any of the front line 4-day bowlers, we're in for a very,very poor T20 campaign. The two overseas players look rank average in English conditions. Mc Dermott may hit the ball hard but he's not finding the gaps like the Essex blokes were.

I suspect that Crane wasn't used at the start of the Lancs innings because we just didn't have enough runs to play with. Probably not a lot in the wicket for him apart from a bit of bowlers footfall rough and we couldn't really afford for him to get tonked. We needed at least another 30 runs and apart from the stalwarts Vince and Dawson the entire side failed with the bat.

You can look at it that way but at the end of the day our batting was nowhere near good enough, the first couple of games of the season apart, but against weak bowling, all season. That has to be corrected if we want to win the championship. We need at least one real opener who knows what to do with dobby seamers bowling straight on favourable wickets. We need to sort out where we are with Aneurin Donald as well, if he's going to play no part again next season he probably needs to be replaced. Need to trim down the fringe players like Fuller and Wood and replace them with serious concurrents for first team places. I see that we've signed Whiteley for the one day games already, that's a start but it's no help for real cricket, ie the CC.

Not going very well in the T20. Hants 81/5 after about 13. Weatherley has made more than half of that total. Batting didn't look anywhere near good enough to trouble Somerset's battery of bowlers overmuch. Still we beat Notts from a similar poor start so who knows.

Yes, a draw was of no value in those days, just whatever bonus points you'd got. Probably why there were so many arranged declarations . Looked at the playing group for tomorrow. Looks a bit weak. No Short, Gubbins doesn't qualify, just the usual regulars and the young players. Somerset on the other hand look to be at nigh on full strength with their test players returning. Might bode ill for tomorrow but perhaps they won't capitulate so easily in next week's championship game.