stevegrant

You'd think so but no, basic arithmetic says otherwise. It's an average over the 8 games so any game average less than you already had will reduce the total average. Look at it this way. For 7 something or others you have an average of 10, in the 8th something or other you only have an average of 5, so the new total average is 70+5/8 =9.375 so your average has gone down. Today's match was close so our relative run rate would have been much lower than the 1,1 or so that we had beforehand. I did a bit of approximative fag packet calculation and we'd have needed to knock off the 326 runs in about 37 overs, scoring rate a bit less than 9 an over. So a good T20 rate really. Also, to clarify, this is simply net run rate, nothing to do with the Duckworth/Lewis method of calculating revised targets when the game is disrupted.

https://www.efl.com/how-to-watch/broadcast-partners/ - this is the list of overseas broadcast partners, so shows a list of countries who DO have deals with the EFL. This means that any game that is televised by Sky in the UK can also be televised by any of these broadcasters, PLUS one of the Saturday 3pm games. So it's quite likely that unless you were in a country that doesn't have a broadcast deal with the EFL, there's a lot of games that won't be available on Saints Play.

Stelios Giannakopoulous was pretty good for Bolton back in the day, tbf

No doubt we've been a massive success in T20, which is ultimately what brings the cash into the county, but there shouldn't be a need to prioritise one over the other.

There is a salary cap across the entire county game, and it's the same number for every county. Surrey seem to have a squad of about 50 players with huge depth, especially among the bowlers, and yet our depth is more or less non-existent - to the extent that the current first-choice openers wouldn't be 5th choice at the Oval, even with Rory Burns averaging about 10 this season - so if we have a much smaller group of players then that should mean that we can afford to pay the bigger salaries for the better players. Unless of course we've already committed big money to the mediocre players that are already there. We've completely wasted this season and last with the best bowling attack we've had in my lifetime because we don't have enough quality batsmen. It's pretty incredible that we came as close as we did last year when we were pissing around with an opening pair from Weatherley, Organ and Holland. Middleton looks like he has something about him, but he's a kid who we shouldn't have to solely rely on.

Proven a very costly drop, too. Aldridge was on 8 at the time, and went on to make 88. Vince has also just dropped a tougher chance from Rew at slip off Dawson, just before he got to his century. Frustrating, as there seems to be very little in the pitch after that early burst from Abbott yesterday morning, so we need to be taking the limited chances that come our way. Their bowling attack is much depleted in this game, they've rested Gregory, Overton, Davey and Henry ahead of Finals Day, plus keeper Kohler-Cadmore, so against a second-string attack our top order have really got to capitalise.

Just been confirmed that we're the first semi-final

Somserset probably favourites on the basis of having won 13 of 15 games this year, but beyond that it's up in the air. Would actually make us second favourites - a team full of players who know how to win this tournament in crunch moments, and while Surrey have all the names, they also have to play Somerset in the semi-final.