50 overs v Glamorgan 13 Aug 2023

Fynn and Coles turned things round and he and Hunt are bowling OK. Early days but we are not yet bring slaughtered.

Yeah, given our lack of penetrating bowlers I reckon we were at least 100 runs short, until FHP and Coles came together there seemed to be no urgency in our batting, dare I say Pujara seemed more interested in protecting his batting average than trying to push things along?

I hear tickets are still available for our next home game…can’t think why that is, we need to address our bowling asap. In the short term make the pitches more bowler friendly and let the batsmen take their share of the pain, longer term look at our coaching and/or recruitment.

We have now played 5 of our 8 scheduled matches.

One win against a side missing a large part of their first team squad who went for 454 runs today.

One loss in a match where we were in a winning position, but our bowlers couldn't defend 58 off of the final 30 deliveries.

Three losses where we were completely outplayed in all departments and never in the game.

Whilst it was never going to be straightforward replicating the dizzy heights of last year's campaign, the drop off to where we are now is quite alarming.

We might understandably question the strength and limitations of our bowling attack, but the reality is that the playing squad and personnel are fundamentally with minimal exception the same as last year.

Yes, we have been without Orr, but Carson missed the whole competition through injury last year, Haines only became fit for the quarter finals and Hudson-Prentice was available for only three matches. Theoretically shouldn't that make us stronger?

Orr, Alsop, Pujara, Clark, Crocombe, Karvelas and Currie played the majority if not all of last seasons matches. Coles played five and even Harrison Ward played six.

Karvelas took 20 wickets at 19.45 with a strike rate of 21.6 and an economy of 5.40 last year. Currie took 12 wickets at 26 with a strike rate of 32 and and economy of 4.87. Neither have so far come close to those levels of performance and understandably have not made the starting eleven in recent matches.

The only notable absentees are Rawlins and Ibrahim (nine and 7 games respectively).

Rawlins interestingly took 14 wickets at 28.14 with a strike rate of 33.7 and an economy rate of 4.99. Coles and Crocombe whilst not at the same level of Karvelas, Currie and Rawlins both produced better returns than this season, no doubt due to being able to bowl in better and less pressured match situations.

So perhaps the bigger more pertinent question is what has changed. Did we over achieve? Is the opposition stronger this year? Different tactics, wrong team selection, over confidence, different preparation or something else?

The three significant changes are we have a different Head Coach, a different Captain and no Rawlins. Now I am not suggesting the problem is with the former as I do believe he is a significant upgrade on his predecessor, who if I recall correctly had already handed responsibility for the One Day Cup over to Kirtley last season. I suspect the issue of captaincy is open to wider debate, not helped when you see him throw the ball to a very part-time and untried off spinner this afternoon when you are looking to stem the flow of runs. As for the last, so much for all those who strongly criticised Delray. Oh for someone of his all round ability in this year's side. He also averaged over 32 with the bat at a strike rate of 138.

So, I suppose my point is whilst we may all berate the perceived shortcomings of the current playing squad, Orr's injury and Rawlins absence aside, it is predominantly the same as last year.

The bigger question therefore is surely why have this same group with an additional year's experience and the benefit of what was achieved last year been a shadow of the side they were?

From the top of the order, the loss of Orr has been a massive factor. We started games in a dynamic fashion, with him. Not now.
Alsop has lost confidence this season . He usually gets out early, when he gets runs it takes him ages. 
Pujara - no change. consistent as ever. 
Clark - not very good . Can’t remember if he played  last year . Ward is an improvement but they don’t seem to rate him. 
Coles - overall , about the same as last year .
fhp - better this year 
Carson - we were better off last year when he wasn’t in the team 
Currie / Ari - not as good this year. That said, I’d persevere with them over hunt and crocombe  
Crocombe , Hunt, to a lesser extent Finn - all crap . They seem more prominent this year . Crocombe is a problem imo. He will always be likely to go for too many

So biggest factors - no Orr pushing the innings along, and not one gun bowler (unlike last year ). 

Wicked, this hasn't been discussed as far as I know.
I hope Farbrace can continue with Sussex and lead us into being a good competitive team in all formats.

I don’t know the ins and outs of player contracts but how about swopping Crocombe for Mills, surely Mills could manage 18 overs over three games with the rest being picked up by a part time bowler, it’s not like Mills had to bowl in the quarters or finals of the T20 and we often don’t have to bowl all 50 overs! 6 overs of fast aggressive bowling might winkle out a couple of top order batsmen or at least slow the run rate.