The Cricket Thread

Fastest 50 of the Hundred for Liam Livingstone off 20 balls.

 

These crowd catches are great tonight!

 

I'd have liked another 120 to defend

 

Astonishing bashing, good crowd catching action.

 

Livingstone's own bowling has denied him the chance to score the first 100 100, whilst also making the biggest team score.

 

3 crowd catches!

 

Oh well, we'll just have to get revenge on Trent Rockets.

 

Scary to think how many more he could have got from those 26 unused balls

No question that he deserves to be in the final based on group game performances

 

At least he got the highest score, and I’ll bet he tries for a ton at Lord’s.

Glad Tom Abell got a run out too, he hasn’t played any cricket for a while.

 

Good news for you ahead of the resumption of the t20s and CC.

Although if the ECB release Moeen, unfortunately for Tom it'll surely be him who makes way.

(I'm expecting the ECB to make all three of Moeen, Root and Overton available. But whatever they decide, they need to make it the same for all three. Personally, no offence to Overton, but I'd be fine if they insist that all three need to rest!)

 

De Kock (wk) (os)
Smeed
Livingstone
Duckett
Moeen
Patel
Evans
Khan (os)
Jordan
Milne (os)
Mills

That would be my XI of the group stage, when confirming to somewhat normal rules - eg number of overseas, balance of bowling attack, batters playing in roughly the correct position.

Malan for Smeed, Brooks for Evans, and Howell or Tom Curran for Jordan, were all very strong possibilities.

Rashid and Lintott miss out because there are already four other spinners in the side. De Lange misses out due to being limited to three overseas. Bairstow misses out because he only played twice. I couldn't stick Malan in down at no.6 or 7, because that isn't his role at all.

 

Moeen and Overton have been made available, but apparently not Root

 

I'm not convinced Overton will play anyway on Friday. Why change a winning team?

 

Agreed. The only options are Garton or Whiteley. But Garton has done little wrong, and Whiteley would leave us having to play Garton and Overton as proper batters. As mouth watering as it would be to have that six man bowling attack, it would be too big a risk to rely on so few batters.

 

Oh balls CDG is leaving for international duty.

 

That's a big blow for Hants more than anything else.

 

Tim David has been in serious form for Surrey though.

Not that it helps our QF next week though. That is a blow. I did say after the group stage that we might be thankful for selecting Abbott in that one group game, to make him available if needed.

 

Yeah I was thinking more for the T20 for Hampshire. Will we be able to select Gubbins?

 

I don't think. I think he too would have needed to play at least one group game for us.

 

I'm relaxed at the news for Brave. Like I say, David is bang in form (albeit I'm still to actually see him - I'm just going by the numbers), and Birmingham are losing Allen. Beddingham is solid, but I presume he won't play - more likely I'd have thought is that Abell will keep his place now, with a straight swap from Allen to Moeen. So overall I see that as a win for Brave.

But it's very much the opposite for Hants. Regardless of what Abbott's brings with the ball (assuming we do pick him!), I don't see how we replace Colin's batting. We're already having to cope without Dawson.

One option is: Vince, Short, Prest, Weatherley, Alsop, Fuller, McManus, Wood, Abbott, Crane, Wheal. But that requires Prest, Short and Fuller to bowl four overs between them. So probably more likely is: Vince, Short, Prest, Weatherley, Fuller, McManus, Currie, Wood, Abbott, Crane, Wheal. But a bad powerplay for us with the bat, and the match would be over already with that XI. So maybe could go Organ for Currie.