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Post by hhsussex on Sept 7, 2016 8:11:25 GMT
17 wickets here, 21 at Taunton on a pitch that the BBC described as "a used pitch with bare patches at both ends to entice the spinners..." , 13 apiece at Nottingham and Cardiff. Yet no suggestion that the Cricket Liaison Officers (new name for pitch inspectors) will be involved, and medium-pacers thriving alongside spinners. What is occurring? Despite the usual rather muddle-headed attempt to legislate for change, this year's compromise the gift of first innings bowling to the opposition, pitches are behaving pretty much as you would expect at the end of a long season. Most of them have been played on at least once during the season, probably more than that, and in the South at least they have just gone through a pretty long dry spell in which the grass has not grown back as it would do during May or June. Add to that the inevitability of heavy dews, especially when the atmosphere stays humid and sunless for much of the day and you will get wickets with patches of damp, scrubby grass on top of a dry, worn bed. Bowling first may give you an advantage but these wickets will not necessarily play like that throughout the game. Northants had two spinners operating in tandem yesterday afternoon at Beckenham on day one and getting some purchase. But there was also bounce and movement for the pace bowlers. The pitch had a very strange tint. Not green, exactly; more sickly and jaundiced, the kind of hue that stares back at you from the bathroom mirror when you've had a rough night out and aren't quite ready to face the day. The "rather muddle-headed attempt to legislate for change" I'm guessing is a reference to the toss relgulations.One of its stated objectives was to encourage spinners. That hasn't worked so I have another suggestion. Rigorously impose the 16 overs per hour rule - even increase it to 17 if necessary. Stop all the gerrymandering in which even when plays ends 40 mins late the over-rate is miraculously manipulated back to zero. Impose fines and points deductions without allowing any pleas of mitigation. That will make captains select and bowl their spinners. Guaranteed. I spent a lot of my working life in a target-setting environment, supposedly encouraging better performance in strongly customer service-oriented environments. In all that time I tried to develop and promote the skills and good practices of the people actually delivering the service, but mostly had to devise and implement new ways of recording "change activities" ordained by senior managers, often resulting from the costly advice of external management consultants, or derived from books of management theory. Guess what happened? The more sophisticated the metrics became the more devious operational managers became at gaming the environment, sacrificing other aspects of the work in order to ensure those vital "points" for XYZ initiative and therefore gaining themselves brownie points for being "high performers". Disastrous for the actual delivery of the service; excellent for low-level politicking and career advancement. Your well-meaning initiative sounds great, but what do you think will happen? More spinners, or more 65 mph medium spacers with short runs? True change comes organically, because there is a realisation that the status quo is rotten and must be reformed. When there is a wider appreciation of the benefits a spinner can bring to a side - and this is one of the potential gifts that the T20 game can make to the first-class sphere - then there will be a general movement by captains and cricket committees to bring about the conditions in which a spinner can operate to best advantage, and then the overs-per-hour will increase as if by magic. There will also be a movement to ensure that wherever possible pitches are prepared that offer something to all bowlers, because good spinners will achieve results on wet as well as dry wickets, and wickets where there is good bounce, on anything in face other than the boring, batting-oriented wickets that the chairmen and the suits on cricket boards love because they think they are providing matchlong-lasting product. |
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Post by Deleted on Sept 7, 2016 8:20:55 GMT
Yes, but the point is we already have a requirement to bowl 16 overs per hour, but it is not appllied in any meaningful way.
The beauty of my proposal is that it doesn't involve any change to the laws or tinkering with the regulations. Merely proper observance of those that already exist.
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Post by hhsussex on Sept 7, 2016 11:10:02 GMT
Paul Horton takes his first first-class wicket in a 177 game career to dismiss Ben Brown, but the stand of 133 with Ollie Rob almost certainly means a Sussex victory either today or sometime tomorrow.300 up as I write and all those once-precious bonus points will mount up. Probably an extra point or two might make the difference between 3rd and 4th.
Meanwhile Kent are facing a much tougher task at Beckenham against Northants. Viljoen and Claydon will have to bowl with much more discipline thanm they did against Sussex who self-destructed.
On edit: Sod's law strikes - Horton the Destroyer!
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Post by Wicked Cricket on Sept 7, 2016 12:38:42 GMT
A great comeback from Brown and Robinson which 'should 'seal the victory.
I have been impressed by Ben Brown in recent matches. Being there at the end at 'The Swalec' and the way he celebrated the win
with enormous passion alongside Garton has done his confidence a world of good. And dare I say, he seems more comfortable
with Captaincy than Wright given his recent batting performances.
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Post by hhsussex on Sept 7, 2016 12:50:08 GMT
Paul Horton takes his first first-class wicket in a 177 game career to dismiss Ben Brown, but the stand of 133 with Ollie Rob almost certainly means a Sussex victory either today or sometime tomorrow.300 up as I write and all those once-precious bonus points will mount up. Probably an extra point or two might make the difference between 3rd and 4th. Meanwhile Kent are facing a much tougher task at Beckenham against Northants. Viljoen and Claydon will have to bowl with much more discipline thanm they did against Sussex who self-destructed. On edit: Sod's law strikes - Horton the Destroyer! Leicester imploding rapidly at 17-3 and a victory today would be very nice. It won't make up for the disaster last week but it will give some encouragement to the players who made it happen: Brown, Archer, Nash, Robinson and Magoffin. |
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Post by Wicked Cricket on Sept 7, 2016 13:06:25 GMT
Fantastic swing bowling from Sussex. 25-4. Lowest recorded Leicestershire innings is 25 against Kent in 1912. The second is 26 also
against Kent the year before!
edit: Cosgrave goes - 29-5. This should be over by tea! Sussex go from dismal (Kent) to incredible in just one week. One almost feels seasick
but a rather pleasant seasick! The Leicestershire improvement under Andrew McDonald and Wasim Khan looks fragile.
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Post by hhsussex on Sept 7, 2016 13:29:28 GMT
In the midst of our pleasure, spare a thought for Leicestershire today who had the sad news of the death of their former player, captain and coach Ken Higgs at the age of 79. Sussex followers will forever associate Higgs with John Snow in that immortal last wicket partnership of 128 against West Indies at the Oval in August 1966. For more than a decade he was a leading fast medium bowler for Lancashire, deservedly winning 15 Test caps and perhaps unfortunate in not gaining more, possibly because he inexplicably lost form for much of his prime when he would have been the natural bridge between the Statham-Trueman generation and the new breed represented by Snow. He then went to Leicestershire as part of the Mike Turner recruitment of canny old pros to build a team that won the Championship for the first time in 1974.Following Illingworth's retirment and bowling now well within himself but ever skilfully he captained the side until his own retirement at the age of 42 in 1980, after which he became county coach.
In emergency he appeared for Leicestershire in one further firstclass game in 1986 against Yorkshire, replacing the absent Jonathan Agnew, and at the age of 49 took 5-22 in 11 overs.
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Post by Wicked Cricket on Sept 7, 2016 13:38:49 GMT
Hhs,
That 128 run partnership is indelibly marked in my 8 year-old's mind as I watched the match in black and white on TV. That particular
game increased my love for cricket and spurred me on to become a seamer at school. I thought 'If fast bowlers can also be batsmen
that's fine by me.' Sad news about Higgs death though.
Meanwhile, the Leicestershire radio commentator is suggesting their dismal batting performance is down to the recent news that Coach,
Andrew McDonald, is leaving at the end of the season to return to Australia. I would suggest it is down to the swing conditions which the
Sussex bowlers are using ruthlessly to their full advantage.
Thar she blows! Wiese strikes and Leic are 59-6.
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Post by hhsussex on Sept 7, 2016 13:42:59 GMT
Hhs, That 128 run partnership is indelibly marked in my 8 year-old's mind as I watched the match in black and white on TV. That particular game increased my love for cricket and spurred me on to become a seamer at school. I thought 'If fast bowlers can also be batsmen that's fine by me.' Sad news about Higgs death though. Meanwhile, the Leicestershire radio commentator is suggesting their dismal batting performance is down to the recent news that Coach, Andrew McDonald, is leaving at the end of the season to return to Australia. I would suggest it is down to the swing conditions which the
Sussex bowlers are using to their full advantage.
Thar she blows! Wiese strikes and Leic are 59-6. I think that is more likely. My memory of the Snow-Higgs partnership is being on the beach on a hot day and listening to the transistor radio as the runs piled up. Before that I hadn't had any really strong identification with cricket. Afterwards the world opened up its doors. Good for Wiese - at least he can bowl a bit, because his batting is rubbish! |
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Post by Wicked Cricket on Sept 7, 2016 14:19:04 GMT
One final sneeze and this match is over. A delayed tea coming? 81-8. edit: Hilarious. Adrian Harms cancelled his bed and breakfast for tonight before tea. Now he's worrying what will happen if this present Leicestershire 9th wicket partnership continues on and on... There's always the Premier Inn at Fosse Park at £59 a night. Hopefully, the BBC budget stretches that far.  |
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Post by hhsussex on Sept 7, 2016 15:46:48 GMT
One final sneeze and this match is over. A delayed tea coming? 81-8. edit: Hilarious. Adrian Harms cancelled his bed and breakfast for tonight before tea. Now he's worrying what will happen if this present Leicestershire 9th wicket partnership continues on and on... There's always the Premier Inn at Fosse Park at £59 a night. Hopefully, the BBC budget stretches that far. Judging by the tweets he posts it isn't the overnight accomodation they should worry about so much as the cost of his dinners; the man is a glutton for cakes, pies, pastries, anything on a plate. |
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Post by joe on Sept 7, 2016 15:53:40 GMT
Fantastic display of quick bowling on a seamers dream wicket.
22 points in the bag and Worcester at Hove next week with the weather set fair and hopefully CJ and Wright back in the team.
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Post by Wicked Cricket on Sept 7, 2016 16:34:43 GMT
Great performance and a great comeback from last week. Sussex could end up in the top 3 of Division 2 which is
better than the recent sixth position.
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Post by Deleted on Sept 7, 2016 19:20:54 GMT
Fantastic display of quick bowling on a seamers dream wicket. 22 points in the bag and Worcester at Hove next week with the weather set fair and hopefully CJ and Wright back in the team. If CJ is available, Sussex will have a difficult decision to make. Which one of the five first-pick seamers do you leave out - Magoffin, Jordan, Robinson, Archer or Wiese? As for Garton and Whittingham, they are just going to have to be patient, get fitter and stronger and wait they turn. Their time will come...but it isn't right now. A good position for Sussex to be in... |
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Post by joe on Sept 7, 2016 20:14:58 GMT
Fantastic display of quick bowling on a seamers dream wicket. 22 points in the bag and Worcester at Hove next week with the weather set fair and hopefully CJ and Wright back in the team. If CJ is available, Sussex will have a difficult decision to make. Which one of the five first-pick seamers do you leave out - Magoffin, Jordan, Robinson, Archer or Wiese? As for Garton and Whittingham, they are just going to have to be patient, get fitter and stronger and wait they turn. Their time will come...but it isn't right now. A good position for Sussex to be in... Good to see you acknowledging that Archer is one of the first pick seamers bm but what happened to Shahzad? |
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