by st_brendy » Thu May 04, 2017 8:15 pm
Bad luck, bad fielding, and - almost amazingly - bad bowling from Abbott contributed heavily to that defeat. Rarely will Topley and Berg bowl so well, for so little reward (getting the ball past the bat over and over again). For whatever reason, the Pavilion end seemed like a delight to bowl from yesterday. Sadly for us, only Roland-Jones came away with figures to illustrate that.
If there is one negative to our season so far, it is our fielding. We've dropped too many catches already. And yesterday we dropped two more, missed two run-outs, and missed a stumping. None of which were particularly difficult. Take those chances, and get a little more luck when bowling, and we could have been chasing 210.
But sticking with the topic of fielding, I'm still yet to see evidence that McManus is a tidier keeper than Wheater. And sadly for the lad, that's on top of absolutely no evidence that he knows how to bat against a white ball. And in modern day 50 over cricket, that is a massive; two new balls opens the risk of more wickets being lost up front, but it also means that batters face a harder ball for longer - and when you throw in only ten overs of five men on the boundary, you can seriously cash in now towards the end of one-day innings. And inevitably that means needing to have batting strength at 6, 7 and 8.
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Thanks for everything Pothas. You'll be missed. My nickname for you was apt and I will never forget it. For the last time, arise Sir Nic.