At least one more wicket before the new ball and we should be ok. We've got 23 overs should we need them.
Just 10 points from that, which could have been a lot worse. Losing our captain and best bowler after Day 1 was a bit of a handicap!
Maybe. But this was no normal tail. With Virdi up the order, their entire tail was comprised of number 7s and 8s. I said above when we got Clark that it was probably too late. We needed roughly 10 overs per wicket, so to only take 1 wicket in those final 18 overs was about what I expected. For sure, if Holland had held on then we'd have had a great chance. And it really was an awful drop. But I'm not sure it would have been nailed on victory from there.
Yeah, I should've said probably BTW did you see Weatherley involved in the captaincy discussions with Abbott and the bowlers?, just shows how much that he is within the inner circle of the team.
I think we can safely say that is Somerset through. Regardless of whether Gloucs go into next week on 121 or 129, with us on 123 there is practically no chance of both us overtaking Somerset on 134. And likewise with Surrey closing the 22 point to Somerset.
Looks like the forecast is good in Cheltenham tomorrow so unless one of Middlesex's order does "an Amla" we will probably have to win there.
I'm more interested in the forecast in Cheltenham next week. Which I hear isn't currently good. We always felt that our failure to bowl them out at the Bowl would come back to bite us!
It's not horrific - Sunday looks fine, the other 3 days could be a case of luck in avoiding the showers.
I still don't get why any of you try to do the maths on this. RB wants an outstanding hotel/cricket/golf/spa complex not a bunch of fans thinking we might progress
A very frustrating day's cricket to watch. In my opinion there was far too much short-pitched bowling with a leg slip and a leg gully in. Surely with only a handful of overs to go you need to attack the stumps as much as possible? Why were they still bowling bouncers that Amla and Clarke could simply duck under and waste a precious delivery? Wheal bowls a nice yorker in one-day cricket, why not slip that in every once in a while, send those stumps flying?!
Perhaps I am guilty of exaggerating its effect in my own mind, but I'm sure the yorker should be used much more than it is these days. I asked Chris Wood a while back why they don't bowl yorkers constantly in T20 and he said that it was a hard ball to bowl and can go for 6 if they get it wrong. Surely they've got all day in the nets to practice it though and it's not as if most other balls in T20 don't go for boundaries anyway...
John Simpson must be in dreamland at making the XI. With all due respect to him, he's a bang average county keeper. The other 10 players selected don't surprise me, but I was expecting Duckett rather than Simpson. Naturally though, I do hope he goes well.
Good first session for Middlesex. The difference with Surrey yesterday though is that runs do matter to Middlesex - at some point they may look to attack, and with their batting form this season, that could be great news for Gloucs. PS. Nice start, Mahmood.
