Because of the way he acted at the end of the Afghan-India game; deciding to bring himself onto bowl the 48th and 50th, in order to be the hero, and then duly losing them the game - when the spinners were doing a top job, and probably would have won them the game if he'd stuck with them. That's not acting as a captain. That's acting as a selfish egotist.
Solid, if unspectacular, first session. Organ clearly not yet comfortable in first class cricket, but he's still very raw. The important thing is that he's helped to see off the new ball, and hasn't just given it away. We barely have a batting line-up in this match, so we needed to avoid being 15-2 at all costs. And we have. Holland will be annoyed that red ball cricket is put on hold after this match.
Our middle order can more than make up the scoring rate later, roughly 2.5 an over is ok for an opening partnership and we have badly missed opening stands seeing off the new ball recently.
Absolutely. Not unthinkable that we could fold like a pack of cards in this match, so few batters do we have. Then Kent may hay in the sun, and suddenly we're 200 adrift on first innings. So whilst we have some batters at the crease, I'd rather they didn't get out. And besides, Organ is still very new. Baby steps required. Unlike Soames, he's at least showing signs that he knows one end of the bat to the other. If he's still batting like this after 6 or 8 games, then questions can be asked. But game 2?
Two down. As I said, I quite like batters to stay at the crease. Rilee and then Donald could fly. Or they could leave us 110-4.
With one innings remaining, I think 'underwhelming' would be the best way to describe Rahane's time with us. One 100 and one 50, and some excellent slip catching, so it's been far from a disaster (we've had overseas players do less than that for us before). But basically nothing else. Just a series of single figure scores. It's difficult to claim that he'll be missed. I just wish we would sign a second overseas player for the t20. Even more so if it's a WK.
If only we had tried Holland and Organ as openers after Vincey left for England, ah well better late than never.
It's still very early days. Two home matches, in lovely sunshine, against arguably the two worst bowling attacks in the division. But absolutely no-one can argue that the early signs are not positive. I don't know what our plans are in terms of an overseas player for the final chuck on the CC season come September, but if we haven't yet decided then I'd suggest that we've now swung closer to a bowler than a batsman. Organ, Holland, Vince, Northeast, Rilee, Donald, Alsop and Dawson is already a case of needing to fit 8 into 7, so signing an overseas batsman just complicates matters even more. And besides, I'd always rather an overseas bowler in red ball cricket (overseas batsman for white ball cricket).
