Hodgey

The World Cup break may just save our season. Are any of our players going to the wc ? (That in itself is a worrying indication of quality), 1 or 2 max, so the manager will have 6 weeks uninterrupted training time and our squad should be completely fresh, which we seemed to do OK on during COVID. It does beg the question though on why our players aren’t going at 100pc with the high press now knowing they’ll get a 6 week break shortly….

Agree that a loan deal for a decent young striker knocking on the door at a top club would be most likely. Out of the 8 attacking players we have - I’ve genuinely no idea who are the best 4, and Ralph doesn’t either, which leads me to suspect none of them are good enough - which is pretty telling. Think we can all see that Lavia alongside JWP May solve the def mid, and Tino coming back gives better full back options. Cb and gk look good enough. But I’d be surprised if anyone thinks we can cobble together anything other than a championship level attack with what is left. Which is a big problem for a new manager.

Shouldn’t be of any surprise at all that he has looked ordinary with a few errors like all inexperienced players. Ordinary in the Prem from great in L1 is I imagine what we expected, he’s better than Mc Carthy but no better than Forster, and he’s worse than 80pc of the other Prem gks. This is the SR model, get young improve and sell, although I don’t see him ending up as a £30m gk so not sure if this was the right way to go in such a crucial position.

This is the biggest worry of all. We know that JWP can be one of the best cm in the division - all the stats prove that (I know there are many on this forum who don’t accept that, but statistically. and I’d argue simply watching games, they are wrong). But he’s well off the pace this year, and when you have a load of nippers with potential you absolutely need the consistency and standards of known quantities. Ralph needs to sort that out first - how can we get a proven player like that firing again. The cf situation we will have to live with, our strikers are not Prem level, so we’re going to have to create double the chances. I’m also worried about our gk, we haven’t fixed this problem at all…

hopefully Prest and Currie come of age with another year under their belts. But yes we still need an opener and a spinner, the latter will be easier to find than the former…

Not good, and hard not to over-react after what has been an excellent season. I think this loss can be put down to a on the beach scenario, but that doesn’t disguise the continued poor batting. Even here if we had won it would have been down to Barker / Fuller. We’re imbalanced as we have a lot of batsmen who can score well once the ball has softened, but nobody really who can dig in (brown and Vince sometimes). Still we’re clearly not far away…

Imagine Yorkshire are none too pleased at our recent antics, gifting Kent a win and threatening the same to a Warks side short of their two overseas stars…(despite losing a day to the weather)

That won’t work for Warks who need a bonus points win. Let’s confirm how flat the pitch is once we have a bat !!

Think we are starting to see a huge gap in quality openers, as a young cricketer you are not getting fame and fortune for seeing off the new ball and tricky spells, everyone wants to come in with a softer ball and wack it about. Weatherly an excellent example of just that - failed opener but rewarded for walking it about sometimes further down the order. Seen so many collapses all round this year. Not sure I can agree with you on the bowlers - they’ve got the joint highest bowling points and with Fuller and Barker, they are a bit wayward sometimes, but they’ve bailed out and outscored our batters on so many occasions.

I think much of the question remains are we getting enough out of the players we have. By and large I think he is, he isn’t getting more than expected out of them though. He knows our strikers are not good enough - they didn’t get the wow attacker over the line and it was pretty obvious they had half an eye on moving Adams on. So it’s not like Ralph doesn’t know the issues. Rom going was a mistake - but I’m assuming once told he’d be a back up he was keen to go and allowed to due to service. I think there is fair criticism on att mid - he hasn’t found that balance yet but as there are new faces I’m willing to give him some flex. The 5 at the back fiasco I think was just tried too early without the personnel to do it - now we have DCC I expect a hopefully successful return (we certainly need a different tactical option). Overall we don’t currently have the players who can deliver the final ball / shot so I do see his obsession with keeping it tight knowing going toe to toe against more clinical sides (most of the division) will end up badly. So overall I think his plan makes sense, and will need a bit of time.

Over the season they all played well, you could look at Donald and Holland as being two weaker players but until we paired Holland with Organ as openers we looked worse. To go that one extra next year we need to find another quality batter, I’d say we also need to keep Fuller who has provided a fair few marginal differences with both bat and ball. Finally as stated a spinner we trust in 4 dayers. Plenty of positives - Organ starting to come of age, Brown has been an excellent signing, and we have a wagging tail with Barker and Fuller. Would like to see Prest given another go for the dead rubber and maybe Albert as well.

Too pessimistic Pilchards - got 300 so decent effort. Truth is we never recovered from that 1st innings shambles. Shame, couple of batsmen like Vince have been really off form since the bash it about season (and actually during it). That bowling attack was the best in the division, but the batting was very ordinary. Well done Surrey - deserved winners

It’s still possible if unlikely - big score to chase down but the pitch has flattened and we have a short tail. Question is do they have the application ?. Surrey would now need to lose against Lancashire of course, so we wouldn’t want any rain there…

Yep WC - Vince out and Surrey look set for close to maximum batting points. I don’t want my post above about bonus points to come true but I’m not seeing many batting points here…..

7 down - seems like a good time to bat second (let’s see). Not sure why Pope and Foakes are allowed to play and others aren’t…shouldn’t it be all or none for fairness ???

What are our expectations here honestly ? We’ve bought a lot of talented inexperienced kids, lost a talented cf so we only have one extremely limited cf option , and lost a def mid who with JWP could control a midfield. This season was always going to be tough, we are going to get some highs and many lows. We have issues - JWP and Diallo cannot play together - we knew this from previous seasons, they both seem to make each other worse. We don’t have many goals in this team - Che is good for 8 goals a season, JWP will weigh in with similar. Nobody else contributes. That is a huge issue. on the positive side our defence looks much improved. In the last two games I’d argue that if you swapped keepers in each, both would have ended 0-0. We have to hope Bazuna realises his potential and learns quickly. I think we have enough to avoid a relegation dogfight - just, and that is my expectation. Of course if we keep losing to the likes of Villa and Wolves then we may not meet that expectation. Everton is looking like a crucial game for Ralph

Yep - 8 points difference which means a Surrey draw and Hants win means level - aside from bonus points. History suggests Surrey will max batting points in both games which would put them champs even with a draw. Hants have struggled to post 400 plus throughout - hopefully the finishing line as champions may motivate as they are capable and bat down to 8. Weather of course could also factor…

Draw confirmed. I think if Hampshire win the next two with maximum bonus points they will win the championship. I see Surrey drawing one of their games - they do seem to always get max batting points however so unless weather gets in the way I think there is no room for error. Will be remarkable if they don’t win it despite going unbeaten.

This is going to be close. Now into the tail but Northants have a well set batter. Assuming they get to 350 it’ll leave a chase of 270 for Surrey with 60 odd overs. With this pitch and Surreys batters they will fancy that so crucial Northants eat up as many overs as possible and get closer to 300 lead. Either way fair play Northants for digging in and giving Surrey a real game.

I heard that no team have bowled Surrey out twice in a match this season, so unsurprised they amassed a total like that once the pitch flattened. Need Northants to bat until mid afternoon tomorrow now for any hope of a draw..

Amazing stuff - that was pretty much the last ball before heavy rain. Well done Hants, keeps the pressure on and with Lancashire drawing it’s now really a two horse race. Fuller was all over the place before that wicket too !!

Not strictly the right thread but onto franchise cricket and the brave. Surely the idea behind it is to get a load of stars to excite the new cricket watching generation. Not sure a bowling attack of Sterling, Fuller, Hogan, Ahmed, Lintott and someone called Sonny Baker was the plan. That attack would finish bottom in the T20 !. To be fair they are doing all right - and I love watching Sterling , proper old school.

Brave look done so chance Vince might play in latter stages instead of Donald for instance. Not quite sure how it happened but Braves bowling attack was Lintott, a half fit Garton, Fuller, Stoinis, a 41 yr old Hogan and a 17 year old spinner. No wonder two batsmen have smashed record breaking hundreds against them in the last 2 games. That said the all star batting line up have yet to get beyond 138 so not giving the bowlers much to defend. damp squib…

We’re going to really miss him - when he was on fire it coincided with our best periods. Looks like Lavia is the replacement and I can see exits for both him and Che with two more youngsters as replacement.

Usual stuff from Brave, very slow starters and only due to playing a terrible Fire have they any wins. Their big overseas batters haven’t turned up so far and the bowlers are carrying injuries (Mills, Garton) and look a bit weak. Let’s see though - last year they got stronger and stronger, apparently happens with all Jayawardene teams