Hodgey

They got through which is s great achievement, honestly the youngsters and experienced pros have been equally inconsistent. Genuinely not sure best route from here - you would be think experience but I’d say they have performed worse than the nippers.

Not sure what has happened here. At this level - we know these players can bat and bowl, but as a unit they are collapsing, shame as it should be a very winnable competition. Gubbins / Middleton and Prest have been particularly poor.

We’re going to have to disagree on that one. To me we got incredibly lucky - that £10m could have gone on a capable understudy for Downes rather than us losing whenever he didn’t play. if we were a comfortable prem team maybe, but we needed every penny and essentially blew it all so I’d say not a good signing. Yes he made a fair few appearances but so did Mara and Sulimana and I’d say they were equally bad buys.

The Charles transfer was utter madness , you can’t say that’s an ok signing - a championship club spending over £10m on a complete novice who couldn’t get in the team. Thankfully it was a one off but at that time they still hadn’t learnt the very costly lesson of the season before. The Jan relegation window was a complete disaster where we totally lost our heads and due to FFP are still paying the price. Honestly I’m still extremely unconvinced by our recruiting team. To my mind it was Martin who got us HB and Downes (and Manning and Fraser) rather than our recruitment team. They seem incapable of spotting a player, particularly a gk or striker and I’m not sure we’d be any worse off if we just shut the entire team down and let Martin do it. Agree that whomever did the selling last year did well and got good prices, but for good players, we still can’t get rid of a lot of the dross. Edwards looks to be a solid piece of business and I think we are doing some sensible business at the moment with money we have, but Martin in right - all we’ve done so far is get back to the level we finished last season (4th in the championship)

Like what they are doing here - last year they just threw all the youngsters in with Gubbins. That paid dividends and this year they now have experience - so much so that line up looks very strong and they are clearly confident of winning the trophy and using the likes of Organ, Abbott, Abbas, Brown, Gubbins and Wheatley for extra experience and practice before the last few county games. It really is an exciting crop of young talent we have, and it’s great to see how they are being managed. And yes, Whiteley was a massive disappointment and doesn’t seem to have regained any confidence.

We’re going to have to gamble with a striker, it’s a position everyone wants and there isn’t an easy solve with our budget - whoever we get will have huge risk. The GK position however should be much easier to solve, plenty of good gks out there who would love to be no 1 in a Prem club. We probably need to get both right to stay up as they are critical positions. I can accept us getting the fwd position wrong, but if we don’t get a competent keeper at this level then there really is no excuse (and Dubrovnik is not the answer).

Cricket is like the EPL in India - stands to reason these massive clubs want to expand globally and the UK has a decent competitive set up. Short form cricket will continue to grow - not sure they’ll ever crack US though (despite Baseball being dreadfully dull) which is where the cash really is. Great time to be a limited over specialist - wages will soon be up there with football and it’s not seasonal anymore as there are tournaments everywhere. Whilst the 100 is an interesting concept aimed at kids, the opportunity in the UK is to throw proper money at the blast and attract the best players in the world. Not sure the ECB have quite understood that oppo yet. should mean we are cash rich and get high profile oversees, and potentially steal more local talent. weve got some very good young cricketers coming through so hope we continue to support. i was listening to commentary the other day and the Somerset ? Commentator commented that we have finally got local players - apparently he once listed all out players and not a single one was from anywhere near Hampshire !!

But made ridiculously hard work of it. Those 19yr olds started to make very short work of our attack. Good to see McD and Turner back to form. And Prest took the shackles off - not seen him do that before. Jack isn’t ready yet but good experience I guess in the dead rubbers. Lots to do next year if we want to compete. We’re not going to win anything if we are relying on the likes of Wheal and Weatherly. On the plus side I see further improvement from Albert and Prest.

Batting wasn’t too clever either….

Yep - McD has done a Whitely this year, he’s not even a great keeper so if he isn’t scoring quick runs hes useless. Too much pressure on Vince means he’s been caught in two minds how to manage an innings. All rounders done a decent job but they shouldn’t be better than our frontline batters and bowlers. Need another spinner too. Our previous tactics of posting ok scores and relying on bowlers doesn’t work if your bowlers can’t do that. Total rethink needed for next year. We need to be much more aggressive batting and accept sometimes we will hit a low score. Batters in this format should have SR at c 130-150

I’m not so sure - it does seem we have very little transfer budget due to ffp so are trying to max out frees etc. But if we are clever we could use the loan system to attract players who will look at our team and see themselves as a shoe in, and gk could be one of those positions (and striker). Bonus of that is we’re in less financial jeopardy if we go down / they’re rubbish (which given our horrific scouting efforts on big signings may be sensible)

So near and yet so far…

Anyone bemoaning our inability to quickly finish off a game for the lower order - I’d suggest a cheeky look at what is happening with Sussex and Leicestershire!!!

I think Fuller does have a place as a handy all-rounder but he does bowl some brainless just bang it in filth sometimes.

Dreadful death bowling - no pace variation, just bang it in and get walloped that was why we lost. Mills and McAndrew showing guile our seamers don’t seem to have at the moment. think that’s probably us - been a bizarre tournament where our batting has just never got going bar the odd cameo and our bowling has lacked variety and brains (Dawson excepted). we were probably due a bad one given how consistent we have been, but got to question the tactics and prep.

A lot of players look out of form / poor confidence. Even Weatherly who hit 48 was never really middling it. I think we are over cautious whilst 20/20 is becoming more explosive. still a hope if the top order can find more consistent form, middle order is more like a 4 day team. And Essex away is a difficult place to play

One of those days - 2 home games where they could limit runs / control run chases then off to Taunton where you need very different tactics. They are not used to chasing anything like that, even though it’s a great batting pitch and it showed. Didnt watch until later in our innings so there may be a reason for this but Gubbins in at 9 ??? Assume that is because he can’t score quickly - but come on now - let’s give one of the big hitting kids a chance / experience

We looked like a level up for most of that match. Still really poor in the power play, I still think if we are to win this we need a better game plan for that, at the moment we seem to score slowly and lose wickets. Great bowling and Albert is giving us something different.

We’re a funny side, we rarely go after the power play at a time when most do. It really is rare for Hampshire to be ahead after 6 overs. What’s odd about that is we actually have 2 players who like to score fast opening so it must be tactical. With our record it must work for us but seems very odd tactics especially with our depth of batting. We pretty much rely on one of our 5-8s to up the scoring rate at the back end of the innings. Fuller today, Dawson on Thu. Also extremely slow starters so good we have a win already. Concerned Gubbins is anywhere near a 20/20 1st team…

Is this still live on you tube this year ?

Great result especially with Prest injury. Openers starting to fire, as long as one of them amasses a score each time that’s progress.

Imagine we’ll see organ, Dawson, Prest and even Gubbins have a bowl, especially on day 4. Hopefully we have a couple of good sessions tomorrow, rack up a big score and put them in at end of day. if Organ bats 9, as a previous opening batter, that would suggest we’ve a very short tail !

We do have an obsession with City group - that is clearly the model we are trying to replicate to the point of employing a number of their staff and players (don’t forget we also got turned down by the Leicester manager). Problem is we are a pound shop version who has not adapted to the resources we actually have - City are massively successful as they have spent billions over a number of years and got the best people out there.

Surrey get a decent total in testing conditions, be surprised if they need to bat again. Hope we’re not playing them again this year (I know we beat them in a dead rubber last year)

Ahh our yearly thrashing at the oval !.To be fair they are much better than pretty much any other team, especially one that never bats well there. Surrey will be all out for maximum points here and a quick finish