2016 Hampshire Thread

[st_brendy]

The turnaround last year was from Fidel getting getting up to speed.

The turnaround in (I think) 2009 was down to Tahir being signed up.

In effect, two guys coming into the team from abroad, who could something very unique and special in county cricket. I don't see where that is this season. So rather than a third turnaround, I can only really now see a repeat of (I think) 2011 - ie relegation.

Worth also noting that in the year Tahir saved us, we also sacked Paul Terry midseason and replaced him with White. I'm struggling today to see how Benks keeps his job. He has been awful since he came in.

[budgetmeansbudget]

To be fair he hasn't had much to play with in the CC. Carberry, Adams and Smith are all coming to the end of their careers and are all on the slide. The middle order is hit and miss, and the bowling attack is woeful. The youngsters coming in have been moderate at best.

I don't know what influence Berks has on recruitment, but the cards he currently has aren't good enough for division one, which was almost proved last year when we nearly went down, and will almost certainly be shown this season.

[Hampshire]

Anyone heard anything more on Varun Chopra for next season or whether any of our current squad are likely to be leaving? Can't see us sticking with Tino and hopefully Fidel will be returning fit and with a football ban?

[budgetmeansbudget]

Bloody hell, tenth wicket partnership ends with the second run out of the innings, how dumb is that.

Hope it isn't a bad omen.

As it turns out it was.

[mark the hawk]

[quote="budgetmeansbudget"A terrible season continues.[/quote]

A fortnight ago Mrs MarktheHawk and I were strolling along the Prom in Estoril , when a chap came up to me and uttered those self same words ref the Mighty Hants.

I had my Hampshire hat on , just so that you don't think a random loony in Portugal went up to someone and started jibbering about Cricket to them

[budgetmeansbudget]

Was he a fellow Hants supporter or a gloating Sussexonian?!

[mark the hawk]

No , he was a desperatley frustated fellow Hampshireite

[st_brendy]

Anyone heard anything more on Varun Chopra for next season or whether any of our current squad are likely to be leaving? Can't see us sticking with Tino and hopefully Fidel will be returning fit and with a football ban?

Wood is out of contract, but he said himself last week that a new deal is on the table and is basically 99% signed. I think though it's only a one year deal, given his current long term injury status (it would be a bit stupid giving a three year contract to someone who, in theory, might never bowl again - although that is unlikely).

I'm struggling to see why the likes of Chopra, Stoneman and Stone would choose us if we're playing D2 cricket next year. D2 might be great to help bring the youngsters through, but that's not our issue right now. Our issue is the massive lack of players between the ages of about 25 and 29. So many of our players are either kids, or soon to be retired. But you don't sign those prime age players in D2.

[SaintPowelly]

Benks has left due to "family reasons".

Hopefully Dimi Mascarenhas will come in

[st_brendy]

It's fantastic news. I, like others, have wanted him out for sometime now. And infact, only earlier this week I was thinking about ex-Hants players currently involved in coaching outside of the club. Pothas is at Leicester, as their academy director or something. Dimi is with Australia U19s (I think it's their U19s), having recently also been NZ's bowling coach. And McKenzie is SA's batting coach. But that's all I managed to come up with - and all three were only appointed in the last 12 months.

Even in the media, you only really have Warne, Nicholas, Cork, Gower, and the occasional bit of Udal (not that this has any bearing on their coaching ability).

So going down the ex-Hants route, like we did with Terry and then White, might not be an option (unless we gamble with someone untried). But Duncan Fletcher I believe remains unemployed after leaving India last year, and he did spend a season with us in a consulting capacity early on in White's time as coach (between Fletcher's stints with England and India). So whether that is something which Rod might look to explore?

[westoelad]

Correct me if I'm wrong but in 2 and a half seasons Benks has overseen a promotion,maintained 1st division status and this season has had lost a whole bowling attack to injury and also lost 2 of your leading batsmen. Not surprisingly,then, you struggle. I got to know Benks pretty well when he was at Durham. Believe me, he 's a very knowledgeable cricketer and a top man. Be careful what you wish for particularly when you can't think of anyone to succeed him. Thought Hants looked a more than decent side on their last 2 visits to the Riverside.

[st_brendy]

Correct me if I'm wrong but in 2 and a half seasons Benks has overseen a promotion,maintained 1st division status and this season has had lost a whole bowling attack to injury and also lost 2 of your leading batsmen. Not surprisingly,then, you struggle. I got to know Benks pretty well when he was at Durham. Believe me, he 's a very knowledgeable cricketer and a top man. Be careful what you wish for particularly when you can't think of anyone to succeed him. Thought Hants looked a more than decent side on their last 2 visits to the Riverside.

We just got promoted in his first season, in a year where there wasn't a big name (Surrey, Yorkshire, Middlesex etc) to have to compete against. Some of the sides in D2 really are awful.

We just survived in his second year, thanks almost entirely to an express paceman from the WI and a kid from our youth team.

We're currently bottom of the table in his third year.

We've gone backwards in t20. Yes we made two finals day in his first two years, but that was on the back of four years of finals days - he walked into a good t20 team already. And actually, as I recall, in both years we scraped through the group stage. I give him no credit for taking us to either finals day. We've also gone backwards in one-day cricket, having won in 2012 and getting to the SF in 2013, the two years immediately before he came in.

He's stuck by Adams and Smith for far too long. He picks his boy Wheal, even though it's clear he is totally out of his depth in first class cricket. He started to block Briggs' path into our one-day XI let alone our four-day XI, which led to us losing him a year early to Sussex. He appears to have it in for Wheater and Tomlinson. He plays the likes of Best and Fidel in limited overs cricket, despite the fact that their pace makes them painfully expensive. Whilst I don't know how involved he is on the contracts/signing players side of things, our squad gets smaller and smaller under his reign and (Topley aside - oh, and his mate Wheal) every player who we have signed under him has been over the age of 30.

Rarely, if ever, in his interviews did he come across as a positive or motivating character. It was just constant negativity and having a go at the players. And that's when he bothered to give the interviews. A lot of time it was still Giles White, despite him not being the first team coach anymore.

In two and a half years, Dawson is arguably the only player who has improved under his watch. In two and a half years! And that was in part due to a two week loan spell away from the club at Essex!

Good to know that we've played well at the Riverside in the last past two years. Just a shame about the other 15 games. And all the limited overs games.

I think every Hampshire fan would accept us going completely backwards in limited overs cricket (there are three formats of cricket), if he had turned us around in first class cricket. But he hasn't. At best, we're just as bad as we were previously. So the going backwards in limited overs cricket isn't acceptable. And in all due respect, your victory against us in 2007 aside, you haven't been a great limited overs teams over the years, so it's not a surprise that he hasn't turned out to be of much use to us in those two formats.

I would be surprised if there are any Hampshire fans upset by this news.

[westoelad]

Fair enough, you see him as a coach, I knew him as a player.I sincerely hope it works out for both parties.

[SaintPowelly]

The problem with Benks is that he flies back to South Africa every time there is a break between games and that helps no one, we need someone that is 100% committed.

Nice bloke, great player, absent coach

[st_brendy]

Aside from Sussex being cut adrift, all today's four matches in our one-day group have achieved is to bunch everyone together. With the (previous) top two both losing, there is now just three points between 1st and 8th. We have a game in hand on everyone, due to not playing today. In terms of a top two finish, today has been a good day for us. In terms of a top four finish, today has been a (slightly) bad day for us.

A 3-1 win-loss record in our final four games will almost certainly see us qualify (and almost certainly with a home QF if our group game vs Somerset is one of those 3 wins, rather than that 1 defeat). But a 2-2 win-loss record will almost certainly see us knocked out - to have any real chance, those 2 wins would probably have to be against Glamorgan and Kent (and even then we'd still need certain other results to go our way).

It really is that tight one result could be difference between finishing 2nd and finishing 5th or 6th.