stevegrant

Back out now, Donald and Fuller at the crease so should score quickly enough if they stay in. 7 runs from the 300 now...

Good start this morning, 44 runs in the 29 minutes of play before some light drizzle. Forecast isn't great, but as I said last night, hopefully go quickly to 300, get bowling and see where we can get the game to before we have to negotiate the heavier rain later.

If it also rains next week, though, we're back where we started, and Surrey have harder fixtures to finish. We toughed it out today in what were mostly bowler-friendly conditions, got some good runs on the board and hopefully we can squeeze enough time in to get to 300 and have a bowl at some point tomorrow.

Yeah, Donald will keep wicket here. Brown broke his finger after a Jack Campbell (I think) delivery wobbled late on him in the semi-final last week.

Northants had been in decent form before the 16.4 took over, shouldn't be as easy a game as we'd have imagined back in June.

Think that's pretty standard, tbh. The Erling Haaland one at Dortmund was for 18 months, as he was signed in the January window, but it generally ensures the buying club gets at least two seasons from the player.

Extras were the problem there - Kent only bowled three additional deliveries in our innings, we had to bowl fourteen. More than two extra overs bowled, and not only did we give away 20 runs for those freebies, the extra deliveries at the end of those overs also cost 17.

Yeah, we were decent for the most part. Fairly clear the plan was to get in front early to give us that cushion, probably could have had the game won by half-time with either better finishing or not slightly overplaying at times, but some of the interchanges in tight spaces in midfield were very nice and we did the basics when we didn't have the ball too. Quite surprising for an XI that won't have played together to have that level of understanding, albeit admittedly against lower-league opposition.

Good effort in the end, although still feel like we left a fair few runs out there in the last 10 overs or so. Overs 30-40 went for 105/1, I think, but gave away wickets later on trying to hit everything over the ropes. Need to bowl tight lines here, any width will go to the boundary in both directions.

Slow scoring early on in all the games with a few wickets falling too. Probably a decent toss for Yorkshire to have won.

Literally once since the PL reduced in numbers from 22 to 20 teams. That reduction happened in 1995, and the solitary relegation was West Ham in 2003 (a team containing the likes of Michael Carrick, Frank Lampard and Jermain Defoe). While I like the look of the business we've done this summer, it also has to be accepted that the strategy comes with a degree of risk. Players with little top level experience could as easily sink as they could swim. However, when the experienced players are so ingrained in a treading water mentality, perhaps bringing in talented youngsters looking to showcase themselves and improve might turn out to be a better strategy. Difficult to draw any real conclusions from the first three games, in truth. Personally I think all three promoted sides will be there or thereabouts - Fulham look better than they did last time they came up, but that's a very low bar to get over really. They look like they'll score more than before, but defensively they still look pretty ropey to me. Forest needed to buy half a team to replace the loan players they had last season, and arguably another half a team to replace the rest who may not be good enough at this level, so the number of signings they've made shouldn't be too much of a surprise, although the amount of money involved is perhaps a bit more eyebrow-raising. Bournemouth seem to have basically done nothing over the summer and having rather stumbled over the line a little bit last season, they don't look in particularly great shape. Beyond that, Everton still look poor (and have lost their game-changing centre forward from last season) but will probably be fine when they realise that Lampard is a terrible manager. Villa have once again spent loads of money to look no better than they did last season but they will probably also be fine when they realise that Gerrard isn't as astute as that Rangers team made him look. Leicester might get to spend some money at the last minute if they let two of their best players leave - no guarantee they replace them with anyone up to the level required, and Rodgers is doing a fine job of deflecting blame in the media at the moment.

I remember Hampshire doing that for a Lord's final about 15 years or so ago. Got to the final, a certain Kevin Pietersen was made available and he duly came into the side. Nicked off first ball, thanks for coming, Kev.

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Absolute scorcher there this afternoon, and an excellent all-round performance. Kent are rubbish, but you've still got to put them away, so fair play to Gubbins, Prest and Albert for taking advantage. The only (very minor) criticism I might level at Prest - and ultimately it really didn't matter anyway - was that the last few overs when 400 became a very doable total, he wasn't playing the proper shots that had got him beyond 150, he was trying to hit every ball as hard as he could without much of a base, but he's young and I'm sure he'll analyse those last few balls of his innings in terms of maintaining his composure. He could even have got to 200 himself.

Still looks a fairly strong lineup, perhaps a slightly green seam bowling attack. Pitch is doing a bit this morning...

Also a fiver all day in the West Quay shopping centre multi-storey. 20 minute or so walk to the ground from there.

Benny Howell returning next year from Gloucestershire on a white-ball contract. Good news. Less good news is I'm hearing that James Fuller might be discussing ending his contract a year early and going in the other direction, which would be a bit of a disaster for us, all things considered...

Wheal did end up bowling his fair share of overs, but he too went for too many runs. I went along after lunch and it was so frustrating because at one point they'd got Surrey back below the run rate they needed to maintain, but then they started on a spell where they'd bowl 5 good balls and then release all the pressure with a freebie boundary every single over, which made it far too easy in the end. The respective run-ins look to be slightly in our favour, especially with Lancashire still maintaining a pretence of being vaguely in the hunt as well. Hampshire: Northants (H), Kent (H), Warwickshire (A) Surrey: Northants (A), Yorkshire (H), Lancashire (A)