As you said earlier, the biggest problem with 3 divisions is the reduced number of games. But I suspect the ECB want to make red ball cricket a niche sport long term anyway.
Just got home (couldn't stay for the second match - and besides, I was dying in that sun). We're really beginning to see the makings of a decent bowling attack. Not entirely sure why we promoted to Dawson to 3 (it was finally the perfect chance to use Weatherley there!), but no other complaints. Really solid win, with just the one major fielding blemish (the missed run out of Lawrence).
Unless my maths is well out, we've still got a slim chance of qualifying. Obviously we need to beat both Sussex and Glamorgan, leaving us on 15 points. If we improve our NRR enough, we go above Surrey who are done. And with Somerset playing Gloucs on Sunday someone almost certainly has to lose that one. Could do with Glamorgan beating Somerset tonight.
Will be interesting to see how we perform against Sussex tonight. They’re 2nd but not sure if that’s a “real” position. Only lost 2 but had 5x NR. Good test to see how much we’ve improved recently.
Yeah we've still got a mathematical chance. But it's wholly unrealistic. Overtaking Surrey's NRR will be very hard. Our NRR vs Essex today was about 1.0, but it only improved our group NRR by about 0.1. So to need to improve it by about another 0.25 will mean beating Sussex and Glamorgan by even greater margins (or thrashing one of them like we did vs Somerset). And even if we were to somehow do that, we'll still need Somerset to either beat Gloucs, or lose to Gloucs and Glamorgan. We absolutely cannot afford for them to beat Glamorgan but lose to Gloucs.
I see that to basically avoid having to put out an U13 side (due to all their isolations), Kent have essentially signed the Scotland team.
I did feel like we were a batsman short in that first match (seven bowling options was a luxury which our batting doesn't warrant), so it makes a lot of sense to me for us to change that. But I never expected Wood to make way. It could be an injury, but there was no obvious sign of that in the first game. I wonder if it's just a rest, to save his body playing twice in succession.
It's a huge pat on the back for Lenham that he's kept his place even with Rashid now available. Fair play.
That's typical Khan hitting. Weird looking shots hit into weird looking places. Didn't help that Currie was horrendously short and wide.
Well, we’ve just been firmly told our bowling is not up to the mark. Let’s see if our batting serves any better?
