Right, so Essex and Durham have won today, so it's 3 things left to go our way and we'll qualify for the knockouts: 1) We beat Durham in last game 2) Essex have to beat Lancs at Old Trafford 3) Gloucs either lose to Kent or are not allowed to play the game due to covid regulations (hence they'd stay at 6 points from 6 games, which wouldn't be as good as our 9 from 8) Easy!
That's Manchester's strategy for you. Turning pitches, decent boundaries. Their problem could be that this is their last home game. Their final two games are both away.
Literally one (failed) strike of the ball has been the difference between Manchester having a brilliant chance to make the top three, and now needing a small miracle.
Under points per game, us and Gloucs are level on points right now (despite us having more total points). A win for us tomorrow is worth 0.125 points (taking us onto 1.125 PPG). A win for Gloucs tomorrow is worth 0.143 points (taking them onto 1.143 PPG). Hence they would overtake us. There's very little chance of Kent beating Gloucs. So realistically our only chance in that match is for it to be called off. But I would have thought that would have been announced by now if so, hence I'm not hopeful. Either their squad is in isolation still, or not. Fortunately, as I've said before, I don't see us beating a near full-strength Durham. So it's unlikely to matter anyway.
Ta for the clarification didn’t realise it was ppg but that makes sense. Yes very slim chance but I think we said that with one game to go in Champ & even more so in T20. Fingers x’d
I can't decide if Moeen's call up is good news or bad news for us (eg we might need Birmingham to beat Rockets). But yeah, Mahmood's call-up is certainly good news for us. Off the top of my head, Glover and Clark are the spare seamers in their squad (plus whoever, if anyone, they call up to replace Mahmood) - both of whom are a substantial downgrade. Hopefully a Brave double coming up here.
Damn, the Kent-Gloucs match is going ahead as planned. Gloucs don't have Charlesworth or Lace, but Bracey's back in a fairly strong-looking 14 man squad. Come on Kent! Qualification looking even more unlikely now.
