I agreed with Vince in giving Crane that over, because the potential upside outweighed the downside. If he hadn't bowled at all, I'm sure he'd have walked off pretty deflated and maybe even embarrassed. By giving him the ball, he became part of the match and potentially could have picked up a wicket or two. We had to runs to play with just in case it went badly (which it did). But now it's a real problem. His current form would probably warrant him being left out next game regardless of the opponent or the ground. The fact though that it's Radlett just adds to that. Any bowler can walk off having leaked 40 or 50 runs there. I'm not sure we have any choice but to leave him out.
So coming out for those last three overs has cost us a total of four runs (a 26 run win became a 22 run win).
I wouldn't be at all surprised if we're watching him opening for the Brave in the opening game. Given that all eight sides can still pick a 4th wildcard overseas player (in addition to a domestic wildcard player), I would imagine that many of those will come from overseas players part of the Blast. And in our case, we'll again be missing QDK for our first match. Hence someone like Seifert, a fellow opening-keeper-batsman, would seem like an obvious replacement. Even more so given the Sussex link with Brave.
Great evening. Never thought they’d come back on even tho the rain was quite minimal. Nice win regardless. Mason 75 runs 4ovs. Pretty good going! And highest T20 opening partnership for Hants!
I was staggered by Hampshire's innings. The opening partnership was incredible but it effectively made Sussex's innings irrelevent. In it's way, watching Sussex bat when the game wasalready lost for them seem as uninteresting as watching Blundell and Mitchell on Friday where England seemed equally pointless. An incredible performance from Hamoshire and hopefully England can do something similar today.
I so badly want Root to get to the 10,000 runs mark, so I don’t want Foakes to get too many of the runs!
Easily Foakes' second best test innings. He's lived off that century vs Sri Lanka for a while. His career test average before this innings was a below-par 28, but it drops to a paltry 19 if you take out that single century. Nowhere good enough for a no.7, and especially when you have a long tail to follow. But this innings - last night and this morning - has been excellent from him. Top win.
Just magnificent from Root. Now he’s been relieved of the captaincy I wonder how many of those ahead of him on the all-time list he’ll overtake?
I really hope it's a sign of things to come from Foakes. Root will get all the headlines (and rightly so) but the role Foakes played should not be underestimated. He prevented NZ getting through to the rather large tail. If Foakes had gone last night or even early on today we may well be talking about a NZ win, not an England one.
Fair play to Denly, he's really come to the party today. Wins for Kent and Surrey would be ideal for us. And thanks to Denly and Overton, that might well happen.
