Hampshire, the reason why part time spin worked for Essex is because you were awful and didn't attack them. It's not going to run through the Essex batting line up. If Ervine is that desperate to start with spin, then open with Dawson. He did it quite often before we signed Smith, with success.
Well we played three of them tonight. And two of them were arguably the biggest problem! (34 balls between them is more than 25% of the innings)
The senior players have got us in this mess and there is no chance of qualifying, why not look to the future and give them valuable experience?...there is nothing to lose now.
I'm not sure bringing them into a losing team is going to be particularly valuable though. And besides, given that we already have three young batsmen in the side, adding even more to that puts far too much pressure on them. We've already dropped Jimmy, Smith and Wheater (whilst having to do without Vince, Wood, Topley and Fidel). Following the sad recent death of Hamza, I'm not aware of any young seamer who is anywhere close to the first team, except for Wheal. And given that he hasn't played a single game in any format this season, despite all our injury issues and being a personal recommendation of Benks', I do worry about where Wheal's game is at now. Even Scotland left him out earlier this year.
I'd certainly persist with Alsop, Weatherley and McManus in T20 for the rest of the group games and I hope that Smith never plays in T20 again. Plus there is little pressure on them if the result is not important.
Best dropped for throwing the ball at a batsman yesterday. Not actually the end of the world. He's far too expensive in limited overs cricket, can't bat, and we've got a very important four day game for him to presumably feature in tomorrow. (Someone needs to make way tomorrow now that Berg is back, but I'm not sure it'll be Best).
Jimmy injured and a doubt for the first test . A bad thing ? or an opportunity to blood a possible ( future ) replacement ?
