This clip caused a sporting injury. I was underneath my MGB fitting a new stainless steel exhaust when Botham's unfortunate inability to get his leg over caused me to jerk up onto a sharp edge cutting my forehead and eyebrow. Mrs Jab heard the laughter came outside to see lots of claret flowing. "It's the cricket" I said "****ing bonkers" was the reply.
I'm now very happy that all 7 of our away t20 matches are up first, then followed by all our 7 home matches. Because those 7 matches begin 5 days after 21 June.
If you have De Kock you really have to use De Kock. De Kock demands action. I have often thought that having De Kock is only important if you have somewhere to put De Kock. When I was young I remember not having a slot for De Kock and at that point De Kock was just disappointing. There is nothing worse than seeing De Kock pumping away in the nets, balls flapping all over, with nobody there to catch De Kock.
So our strongest line up is probably: Vince Warner Davies Stoinis Russell Dawson Whiteley (?) Jordan Archer Briggs Mills
Every franchise has a wild card pick after the T20 blast so I would hope we select a wicket keeper otherwise we're screwed if Davies gets hurt.
Bizarrely, five sides have gone with just one keeper. We're all taking a huge risk - not just with injury, but also form. I'm sure one or two of us might pick up a wildcard keeper, but probably not all five.
It's a great signing. No idea why he was let go originally. I would argue that we're stronger than last year now. Briggs and Stoinis for Shadab and Pope. But yeah, I'd have rather we went for De Kock.
I'm wondering if we had a gentleman's agreement with Warner that if he was available we would re-draft him.
Hopefully our wildcard can replace Whiteley. Still not too sure what he or Rawlins are doing in the squad.
So the eight best XIs look something like: Hales, Malan, Short, Root, Cox, Mullaney, Gregory, Khan, Coulter-Nile, Wood, Carter (excellent top order, strong all-round options, weak pace attack) Vince, Warner, Davies, Stoinis, Russell, Dawson, Whiteley, Jordan, Archer, Briggs, Mills (excellent all-round options, excellent pace attack, nice balance between pace and spin, lacking out-and-out batsmen) Finch, Lyth, Lynn, Stokes, Willey, Kohler-Cadmore, Simpson, Rashid, Stone, C Parkinson, Mujeeb (excellent spin options, strong all-round options, strong top order, lacking in the pace attack, weak keeper) Bairstow, Banton, Duckett, Pope, Pollard, Cobb, Higgins, Richardson, Plunkett, Ball, Ahmed (strong top order, varied bowling attack, a few too many "bits and pieces" cricketers, lacking in the pace attack) Roy, Jacks, Ingram, Billings, Narine, Blake, Curran, Curran, Mahmood, Lamichane, Topley (strong spin options, varied bowling attack, lots of bases covered without coming across as "wow") Buttler, Salt, Clarke, Pooran, Ackerman, Lammonby, Shadab, J Overton, Rabada, M Parkinson, Gurney (strong spin options, varied bowling attack, strong top order, lacking a top all-rounder) Crawley, Denly, Morgan, Maxwell, Lawrence, Rossington, Bopara, Nabi, M Wood, Crane, Amir (deep batting, strong all-round options, strong middle order, varied attack, lacking an explosive opener) Livingstone, Bell-Drummond, Williamson, Moeen, Abell, Cooke, Howell, Woakes, Zampa, Brown, Afridi (solid options right through from 1 to 11, but maybe just lacking in the "wow" factor - ultimately though, they are just, just, just my favourites to win)
