He is going to be replaced by Nick Gubbins (of Middlesex), coming for the rest of the season on loan ahead of a permanent deal. I'm not sure if it will be in time for him to play against Surrey in the Championship though. Agree that Northeast is a big loss. We needed Northeast, someone like Gubbins and one other to make our top-order batting more solid.
Will Dawson be available for the Surrey match? Perhaps we could request that he be released from the England squad as he's not been playing? If not, and assuming Cameron Steel is not around anymore and Donald still injured, we'll have to play either Organ, Prest or Toby Albert from the 2s as Northeast's replacement. Perhaps we can have CDG playing as the 2nd overseas player alongside Abbott?
Weatherley, Holland, Alsop, Vince, Prest, CDG, McManus, Barker, Abbott, Crane, Wheal is my best guess at the Surrey championship side, be good if Dawson could come in for Prest. Playing Organ rather than Crane as a spinner would lengthen the batting a bit as well. I don't understand why they don't play Alsop in the T20 side either, he normally scores at a good rate in the 50 over stuff. Let's hope he's not fed up and on his way out too!
What the hell is going on at Hants?..., there are some bizarre team selections where it looks like we don't want to win, is Weatherley in someway related to Uncle Rod?
I'm all for giving people a fair go, but the sad truth is that he's not good enough for a team chasing honours like we wish to be. He showed progress last season in the Bob Willis Trophy and has actually made a few decent T20 scores in the last 2 seasons, but unfortunately he hasn't got it at the Div 1 (equivalent) level. Same goes, in my opinion, for Ryan Stevenson and I also don't understand why they keep renewing Brad Taylor's contract and then never play him, even in the 2s. He can't still be injured, surely, as he did some sub fielding against Leics I think it was. I'd play him in the 50 over comp, he performed really well in the 2018 season when we won it.
We've seemingly screwed ourselves over in all three formats, for no obvious reason. Our 50 over side was looking flimsy enough anyway without Vince, Dawson, Wood and Crane (and Donald). But without Northeast too - a really class 50 over batsman - we can now look forward to matching our t20 performance in that competition. Presumably Abbott will now captain us in that competition. Assuming, that is, we actually play him.
He was for 2020, when he was a kolpak and hence didn't take up a precious overseas player slot. But now that he's an overseas for 2021, he got released from his 100 contract.
We've signed Gubbins on loan to replace him. (Will become permanent at the end of the season.) There's a top player in there, even if he hasn't shown it for some time.
For some reason we've used our wildcard pick for the 100 to pick up a 4th spinner (Lintott). Nothing against Lintott, who has done well for Warks since we (Hants) released him. But I'm already struggling to see how Waller gets into our XI, let alone Lintott too. Surely Dawson and Briggs will both start?
I don't know why you are all surprised by Hampshire. We're more content in turning the rose bowl into some international super arena with hotel's and spa's and golf courses than trying to win trophies these days.
A DLS-assisted win, plus fantastic victories by Hampshire and Kent, put Somerset second in the Southern group. Thanks guys!
The one question I had over team selection was Wheal or Crane. CDG in for Dawson is of course a seamer for a spinner. Hence I wondered if we'd off set that by bringing Crane in for Wheal. But neither is an ideal solution. By sticking with Wheal, as we have, Organ is our sole spinner - as well as having a slightly unnecessary five seamers. Whereas bringing in Crane would have avoided both of those two issues, but left us without a third seamer (CDG and Holland are both fourth seamers really, unless the ball is doing all sorts).
Good luck to him. I hope the switch to Hampshire can be as good for him, as it was for Compton when he moved to Somerset.
