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

One week away

bet it rains next Friday

Weather is tuning up today.

The overseas players will all be thinking over how they can cut short their CC commitments, now they are about to become a reality. At least wait until it gets a bit warmer.

Tough start for Hampshire, making the long trip north to newly promoted Durham.

going to turn cold again after the weekend. It'll be 2 coats, gloves, woolly hat and a blanket at the very least

Ollie Robinson is pencilled in for 5 of the opening matches for Sussex. It's about time really, if anyone needs regular cricket more than downtime it's OR

Durhamfootman wrote:Ollie Robinson is pencilled in for 5 of the opening matches for Sussex. It's about time really, if anyone needs regular cricket more than downtime it's OR

The prospect of seeing Jofra Archer, Ollie Robinson, Jayden Seales and Ari Karvelas lining up together on Friday on green early April wickets has me all warm and fuzzy inside, but I guess we can never count on the two England lads fitness at the moment, so I am prepared to be disappointed. Maybe we will see it at some stage before the end of May... hell of an attack for Division 2 that.

Not really sure what the status of Jofra is. He didn't play in the warm up games v Hampshire/Surrey. He did bowl in the T20 friendly v Karnataka doing ok. And then in the 2 day friendly, ended up joining Karnataka's attack as the match ran out of time for Sussex to have a bowl, and apparently sent down quite a fiery spell, including a ball that snapped one of the wickets in half, and another ripper of a wicket.

Would be nice, even if its in an England shirt, to see him back playing.

Yorkshire are runaway favourites for Division 2, but aside from the addition of Root and Brook for the first handful of matches, I don't think they have actually signed anyone to the team from last year, and that team even with deductions wouldnt have been promoted. I did read that Yorkshire had no money to add any players, so if Shan Masood is picked in the Pakistan T20I WC squad or any of the warm ups against NZ and Ireland (he was officially rested for the 23/24 NZ tour in T20Is) thats a huge gap, because him and Shai Hope added valuable contributions last year.

Ben Coad rippped teams apart, but after that, the bowling attack wasn't good. Dawid Malan also retired from 4 day cricket this year I believe, and is only there for the white ball stuff.

Yorkshire need their bowlers to do a better job. Personally, I think 3-4 teams have a big chance.

May as well give the Div 1 title to Surrey now

Don't think Surrey currently have many England Test players, which is a bonus. Pope will be called up, but Foakes isn't a cert in English conditions.

Arthur Crabtree wrote:Don't think Surrey currently have many England Test players, which is a bonus. Pope will be called up, but Foakes isn't a cert in English conditions.

Well, to a squad that has dominated the competition last couple of years, they added Dan Lawrence... who is basically the best English bat not currently in the English test team, so its fair to say they on paper have got even better, and with the return of Brook I doubt Lawrence retains his spot as next cab off the rank. And Foakes will drop back out the full squad with Bairstow no doubt taking the gloves to accommodate his Yorkshire colleague.... so aisde from Pope, who will play the same amount of games anyway, they shouldnt lose anyone.

And thats before you consider that Jason Roy didnt go to the IPL this year and is technically available. Sam Curran maybe will be available this year after missing last year. I know Tom Curran originally backed out of 2023 due to injuries, maybe he will make a return at some point. They retained both overseas players who did very well. Their bowling is stacked, their batting is littered with test match caps, they have the best keeper in the country...

Can't see anyone getting close. And maybe if they do, Surrey can just buy out all their rivals contracts and absorb their star quality.

As much as i want to see Essex win it it's very hard to look past Surrey....their batting line up is stacked, and the number of bowling options they have could fill 3-4 sides!! Highly doubt Jason Roy gets a look in, in red ball cricket nor is he needed in that side...Dan Lawrence isn't even guranteed a spot in the side which is why im suprised he even made the move...Would like to think Ben Foakes keeps his spot in the test side, especially if Stokes is going to be bowling again, but even so they have a class replacement in Jamie Smith. Sam Curran is an intresting one, for some reason he has fallen out of contention in all red ball cricket, tests and f/c, and I'm not really sure why...Frontline spin options their only real weakness?

andy wrote:Frontline spin options their only real weakness?

I think we can judge the state of spin bowling in county cricket purely on the fact that 20 year old Shoiab Bashir has returned from a promising tour of India to be essentially told he wont play for his county this year, and is desperately being punted around the county cricket for another club.

Surrey had the most promising spinner in county cricket a few years back, and despite he pretty brilliant average of 30 considering the graeyard pitches he has to bowl on, Virdi hasnt played for Surrey in about 3 whole seasons. Surrey prefer to pick Jacks as a batsman who bowls occasional filth as a back up spinner, rather than a quality young specialist whose career has been left to decay. Moriarty too was flogged off to Yorkshire last year on loan, and now permanently.

I have to agree with Brendan McCullum... the idea of Bashir not playing a FC this year is utter madness.

andy wrote:their batting line up is stacked, and the number of bowling options they have could fill 3-4 sides!! Highly doubt Jason Roy gets a look in, in red ball cricket nor is he needed in that side...Dan Lawrence isn't even guranteed a spot in the side which is why im suprised he even made the move

I wouldn't put it past Surrey to have signed Lawrence purely on the fact it takes a star player away from their main rival, rather than an actual need they have. The thing I find incredible is how many players they have. As you say, they have enough players to fill more than one side.... and as I just mentioned, you get top young talents like Virdi who cant get a game in multiple years.

The ECB really need to start to do something about how squads are composed nowadays. If England capped players from our last tour cannot get games at their county, then something is drastically wrong. The ECB should implement a maximum squad size of 15 players across the season with academy players up to the age of 22 not counted in the quota along with centrally contracted players.

I hate all of this signing 6 overseas players to play 2 matches each nonsense, white ball only players, England contracted players seemingly released at total random (and often unfairly, like when Sussex played Yorkshire a few years and we had none of our international players, Yorkshire had all of theirs). By all means retire from red ball if you dont want to play, but if you dont want to play for your county, then you dont play full stop.

I'm not sure why Moriarty was let go..seemed a very useful spinner, picked up lots of wickets at a good price too...Virdi dropped off a cliff with again not much reason why....Maybe Bashir should move to Surrey for a bit if he isn't going to play for Somerset? I think your being harsh about Jack's bowling however he isnt a frontline spinner he is an all-rounder so in early conditions using him + 4 quicks was always going to be the way Surrey went about things..

The lawrence case is curious...I was devastated when i found out he was moving especially to Surrey...he won't play there and i feel he will regret the move, apparently he has been promised he will bowl more, as obviously with Harmer at Chelmsford he wasn't going to bowl much, so I'm assuming that had a bit more to do with it, and the bigger pay packet he is probably getting as well

Jacks has 37 wickets in over 50 FC games, so I dont think that can qualify as being an all-rounder. He also averages early 50, so I stick by the "bowling filth" comment.... his bowling record is not very good

Day 1 of Derbys v Gloucs abandoned. Not many start on time. That first hosepipe ban of the summer feels a long way off.