To enforce the follow on or not...

You should always enforce the follow on in my opinion unless your bowlers are exhausted. However today it seems to be an unfashionable thing to do. By enforcing the follow on you make it very unlikely that there will be time for you to lose. Therefore you can concentrate exclusively on winning.

Unbeleivable - Rayner gone for 0, so Middx 37-7 (in reality eight).

Ten overs ago, Middx had the opportunity to enforce the follow on. They didn't and 50 mins later they are facing almost certain defeat.

What an extraordinary turn-around. And self-inflicted, too!

Absolutely right, leedsgull. If your bowlers are knackered then fair enough, but not enforcing the f/o just hands the initiative back to the opposition. There's this fear of batting last ( which is a fear of losing) that seems to over-ride the desire to win. If you want to win, you've got to take 20 wickets - FGS, get on with it! 

I hope Middlesex pay the price in their current match. Maybe their batsmen were a tad complacent about their 1st innings lead?

I'd like to say that no, it can't be true because such untoward inteference could never happen.

But if I did I would be lying.

Kent is run like no other county in terms of the influence the chief executive exerts over what happens on the field. Jimmy Adams has less power than any coach on the  county circuit, and Paul Farbrace before him also found it  difficult. If Brooksy or Zac Toumasi had interfered in the way that is the norm at Kent, Mark Robinson would have left in protest long ago.

To an extent Kent has always been that way; it  dates back to the 1960s/1970s when the great Les Ames was CEO (or 'club secretary' as it  was quaintly called in those days). Any player - even one as  great as Colin Cowdrey - understandably deferred to the views of someone who played with Hobbs and Hammond and against Bradman and Woodfull.  But Jamie Clifford needs to realise that he ain't Les Ames.

There was also the infamous incident when Kent president E.W.Swanton marched into the Kent dressing room when Matt Walker was about to break  some record or other set by Frank Woolley and  ordered captain Mark Benson to declare because an oik like Walker was not worthy to break the great man's record. On that occasion , common sense prevailed and Benson politely but firmly told the pompous old fart to p*i*s*s off.

Under the current Kent regime, though, the executive control seems to have grown. You may recall the bizarre sight last season during a Sky televised T20 at Canterbury when  the chief exec in his city slicker pinstripe  marched  ostentatiously on to the pitch in the middle of an over and appeared to instruct the umpires to take the players off the field.  According to Sky, he told them that  he had googled the  met office radar which suggested there was a storm on its way and that he had ordered the retractable floodlights to be  turned off and lowered as a safety precaution.

My recollection is that the 'storm' took the best part of half an hour to arrive and when it did was not as life-threateningly fierce as had been suggested. As a result of the abandonment Kent won the match on D/L  and Somerset were denied the opportunity to reach the Q/Fs, the first time they had failed to do so  since 2008. I'm sure Clifford acted in good faith on what he beleived was a reasonable risk assessment but  it was nevertheless indicative  of the way Kent is run; every other county would have sent the head groundsman on to discuss the matter with the umpires.  At Hove, for example, Andy McKay would have talked  the situation through with the match officials; only at Kent would it be done in such a high-handed way.

When they're not taking the floodlights down, Kent can't get them up. Today's play v Leics  ended early in bad light due to "hydraulic problems" that prevented them raising the floodlights.   It's something like the third time in as many years that matches have been abandoned or ended early due to floodlight failure.

 Kent are apparently claiming that the company that has in the past maintained the lights has gone out of business, although why  they cannot  find anyone else to do the job has not been explained. There must now be a real prospect that the start time of  Sussex's  first T20 game at Canterbury next week will be brought  forward from 7.00 pm to  5 pm in order for it to be concluded in daylight.

ON EDIT: Two of the floodlights are apparently broken but Kent are now saying that all being well they are due to be fixed on Thursday in time for  the T20 Bash and a 7pm floodlit start v Sussex as scheduled on Friday week.

But I'm not sure whether this now means Kent cannot use the floodlights for the rest of their LVCC programme. Counties have to opt in or out of using floodlights in the LVCC for the entire season - i.e. they cannot chose to use them in some matches and not use them in others (for obvious reasons of seeking advantage in taking the players on and off as suits the home team. Certainly Leics skipper Cosgrove argued passionately with the umpires when the Leics team were forced to leave the field against their will yesterday afternoon). Did the Kent floodlights fail due to circumstances beyond the club's control during the course of this match? Or was there a failure  on the part of the club to get them ready and functional for the start of the season - in which case is Kent  now stuck with not using them in any LVCC games this season?  One for the ECB's legal department, perhaps.

Quite

I suppose it would be boring if everybody weighed up pros and cons and concluded they couldn't be sure about how a game might turn out...

I was just adding to the negative comments directed unfairly at Ed Joyce not enforcing the follow-on earlier in the season.

"Think about what your opponent will like least and you often have the right answer".

There must be occasions when the trailing team correctly would prefer the opportunity to bat again, to get "back into the game", and then be in a position to exert some pressure in the final innings...? 

Under such conditions it must be wrong to enforce the follow on.