Sussex v Somerset T20

My XI would be:

Nash
Wright
Machan
Joyce
Finch
Brown
Beer
Arafat
Piolet
Zaidi
Liddle

So one thing changes from that demoralising trouncing we suffered at the hands of our great friends Surrey - Anyon for Zaidi. We have no bottle. So much for my sodding patience HH, I've flipped me lid already. One hour that little speech lasted.

Look Gumbo, this is the last time I'll answer you until you change your name you nutjob but H-B's done alright in this form up until his last two innings.  There's your contradiction and rationale in one sentence.

Didn't go to game but looked at score card, is there a reason why Liddle bowled 4 overs and Beer 3, or is it déjà vu all over again. Last year Beer would bowl 3 tight overs then be pulled off in favour of someone leaking runs.

At least the game was a financial success - Bruce Talbot's reports says the 5,000 Sunday crowd was bigger than any of the three Friday night Bashes at Hove so far this season.

I liked his description of the Arundel attendees, too: "It was a different sort of audience to the Friday night crowd at headquarters. The four-packs, overbearing DJs and burger vans were replaced by chilled Chablis and duck pâté as spectators laid out their picnics on the grassy verges. The only music was an occasional tinkle from the ice-cream van."

Sounds delightful. But it probably also explains why counties prefer the brashness of Friday night to the gentility of Sunday afternoon for this kind of fast-food cricket: all those people laying out gourmet picnics on the grass and drinking their own chilled Chablis do not make the cash registers ring like Friday night rowdies getting bladdered on five or six pints and soaking it up with overpriced burgers and chips!

Since appearing in the 2012 semi-final, Sussex have become the T20's whipping boys, losing 15 out of 18 matches.

There are serious financial as well as cricketing implications that arise from this, with no revenue from sold-out quarter-final/semi-final/final appearances and diminishing crowds for the group stage games under the Hove floodlights as supporters stay away because they anticipate another drubbing.

Yesterday's XI v Somerset showed only four survivors from the defeated semi-final side of two seasons ago : Nash, Wright, Machan and Beer.

So I'm not sure what the answer is. But - at the risk of sounding like frawdy's echo - as we now have little chance of qualifying, why not use the remaining seven group matches to give the likes of Hobden, Hatchett, Finch and Jackson a chance? They cannot do any worse - and they might surprise us.