Cricket-Match-Special ... A forum for discussion

budgetmeansbudget wrote:Much appreciated.

With half the season or more gone, and having played rubbish cricket with bat and ball, we categorically deserved relegation at that point. But then Edwards came along and then Maclaren and some of the upper order found a bit of form and we somehow pulled an escape out the bag.

Going to be tough next season with two big boys coming up from division two.

Surrey have the quality to deserve that moniker, we don't. Shorn of Prince's runs we'll be out of the first division as quickly as we came, unless the King of Spain has something very large up his sleeve.

Delighted to see Hampshire pull off that great escape. A shame Sussex had to go down but they will surely get promoted in style next season. Surely this all shows that it would be a disastrous mistake to reduce the number of 4 day games, the ebb and flow over the season would be ruined with fewer games.

Making_Splinters wrote:Congratulations on today's result. The end of the season makes one wonder how you ever ended up in this state in the first place.

Fidel, McLaren and Crane is what. We actually found ourselves able to take wickets at last. Rather than carry our attack by himself, Berg finally found himself with more than useful support.

Ervine's return from injury, coupled with Vince, Adams and Dawson all finally finding some form clearly helped massively too. But everything is so much easier when you can actually take 20 wickets. I suspect we'll be seeing very little of Tomlinson, Wheal and Briggs in four day cricket next season.

clucking bell ................ up until yesterday lunchtime i'd resigned myself to Glamorgan , Derby and Leicester next summer

it will now be interesting to see what our recruitment policy is , personally i'd like to see an oversea's player for the whole summer possibly an all rounder , another bowler and horrble as it is to say an opening batsman to replace Jimmy

but to the whole squad of 2015

Unbelievable! Amazing achievement. Having suffered in the same way following Leicester in the premiership a few months ago, I'm not sure how much more I can take of this great escape stuff!
Like others, feeling positive about next season. With the two promoted sides, it looks like being even stronger, but the experiences of the last two months will surely stand us in good stead. Edwards resigning is great news - especially as hrs a kolpak I think. Would love to see us sign a real run machine as our overseas.
There's talk of Slug getting a benefit next year, which would be well deserved. Only worry is that it could coincide with a loss of form, as often happens (just ask Jimmy!).
Onwards and upwards!

Danny Briggs signs a 3 year deal with Sussex after Hants agreed to release him from his contract early.

That's a real shame but you can understand it. His bowling has been such an important factor in our T20 success over recent years. Sadly I think that was his Achilles heel - he became too much of a containing bowler, taking wickets only primarily when batsmen needed to take chances. In the longer form he wasn't penetrative when people could largely play him out.
Woods is in a very similar position - will he settle for the one day role? With Topley coming in his chances may decrease further. Let's hope he responds to the competition. Sad to slowly lose all our academy players.
Good luck Briggsy - you have made a great contribution.

With only one year left on his contract after this season, this season was always going to be a pivotal one for Briggs and his future with us. It started off so well. We'd made the decision to go with him over Dawson as our four day spinner, and Briggs did a half decent job with ball and, for that matter, bat. But the form didn't last, and he rightly lost his place. What then compounded the issue is that, through Crane's emergence, Briggs also slipped down the pecking order in our one-day team. It's one thing for him to only play two formats for us, it's quite another to only play one format (at his, still young, age).

The writing was on the wall for me back in August. I didn't expect it to happen this soon, I thought he would see out the rest of his contract and then leave. I'd be interested to know if he sounded Sussex out, or if Sussex sounded him out. Either way, he now gets the chance to play in all three formats, and I can't begrudge him that chance. The move is bad news for the club, and bad new for us fans. But it's good news for him personally, and for that I think the club need to be applauded for agreeing to put him first. We'll almost certainly be a weaker t20 team as a result though - well, at least 12 months earlier than we were surely going to become any way.

BBC showing that you've released Gatting, must have missed any mention of that on here. Seems a touch harsh as he did well enough when given the opportunity this season.