Hampshire Cricket Club 2022

[Window Cleaner]

Although I have no idea whatsoever concerning his contract status, if Warks go down, as they probably will if we beat them next week, I might think that Sibley is just the sort of opener we need. Got over his bad patch and is now scoring runs again on a pretty regular basis.

[Window Cleaner]

33 minutes ago, Window Cleaner said:

Although I have no idea whatsoever concerning his contract status, if Warks go down, as they probably will if we beat them next week, I might think that Sibley is just the sort of opener we need. Got over his bad patch and is now scoring runs again on a pretty regular basis.

Ah zut, I've just seen that he goes back to Surrey next season. Missed the boat there then. What do Surrey need with another opener ?

[saintsdan]

1 hour ago, Barsiem said:

Fair play to Surrey, they've been a juggernaut this season. I always felt we were a quality opener short of a championship quality team, but we're slowly getting there batting wise having added Brown this season.  Vince has had a terrible year with the bat unfortunately.

We've had a bit of bad luck.  The Essex loss was a bit farcical, and not being able to play Surrey at home was unfortunate.

We've had a great year overall though.  Winning T20, semis in 50 overs and hopefully 2nd in the CC.  Congrats to the boys, hopefully we can go one better next year.

He has 726 runs @ 36.30 making him our highest run scorer (just - Organ and Gubbins both also over 700).  Not brilliant but certainly not terrible.

As Window Cleaner suggests, 3 poor first innings efforts have cost us this year (yesterday, Chelmsford and - most damagingly - the Oval).

[Window Cleaner]

I don't think you can say so and so hasn't performed well.  The trouble is that on 3 occasions they've collectively failed dismally. Plus on two of those occasions the bowlers let the opposition off of the hook a bit as well. Why even yesterday we dropped a couple of catches, the culprits being pretty reliable fielders usually.

We need to sort out the spinner situation, if Crane isn't of any use in 4 day cricket to us then we'd as well let him move on, because yesterday we needed a real spinner.  

[Barsiem]

2 hours ago, saintsdan said:

He has 726 runs @ 36.30 making him our highest run scorer (just - Organ and Gubbins both also over 700).  Not brilliant but certainly not terrible.

As Window Cleaner suggests, 3 poor first innings efforts have cost us this year (yesterday, Chelmsford and - most damagingly - the Oval).

I stand corrected - Vince was better than I thought, though by his standards that’s a poor average for the season.  His captaincy has been spot on though.  We’re very lucky to have him

[Hodgey]

Over the season they all played well, you could look at Donald and Holland as being two weaker players but until we paired Holland with Organ as openers we looked worse. To go that one extra next year we need to find another quality batter, I’d say we also need to keep Fuller who has provided a fair few marginal differences with both bat and ball. Finally as stated a spinner we trust in 4 dayers. Plenty of positives - Organ starting to come of age, Brown has been an excellent signing, and we have a wagging tail with Barker and Fuller. Would like to see Prest given another go for the dead rubber and maybe Albert as well.

[Window Cleaner]

13 hours ago, Hodgey said:

Over the season they all played well, you could look at Donald and Holland as being two weaker players but until we paired Holland with Organ as openers we looked worse. To go that one extra next year we need to find another quality batter, I’d say we also need to keep Fuller who has provided a fair few marginal differences with both bat and ball. Finally as stated a spinner we trust in 4 dayers. Plenty of positives - Organ starting to come of age, Brown has been an excellent signing, and we have a wagging tail with Barker and Fuller. Would like to see Prest given another go for the dead rubber and maybe Albert as well.

I don't think that there's any problem with keeping Fuller, think he signed on for another year back in June. 

I see that Liam Dawson was the most economic of England's bowlers in the T20 in Pakistan yesterday 4 overs for 26, didn't get a bat. Some of the others got absolutely hammered in Pakistan's 10 wicket win, a rarety in T20 cricket I believe.

Looks as if Glos and Warks will be going down to D2 for next season.  As Warks won the CC last season that's some come-down for them. Don't think much has changed in their line-up, just that players haven't performed as well as they did last season. Think we need to be a bit wary of that next year, some of the bowling hasn't been all that good at odd times this season and they're not getting any younger. To me, and I've watched the streams a lot, there's a lack of accuracy at times that gives the batters a chance to get in. Barker and Fuller being the main culprits there. They take wickets to be sure but they sometimes give away free runs, mainly behind the wicket.  At times on wednesday last, Vince just didn't know what to do to stop the flow of runs through the gully-third man region.  If he put in a 3rd man the bowlers allowed shots through the gully, if there was a deep gully they went through 3rd man.

Glos have just collapsed. When I watched a stream on their site, their chairman (or whatever) was waffling on about building the side and striving for excellence etc , obviously doesn't watch a lot of their games then, them having won just 1 game out of 13 so far.

I see that there's a new performance plan to beat Australia and other national sides.  To me that's just complete tripe. The way to win test matches isn't by reducing county championship matches in number. It's probably playing less international series all of the time. To me plenty of fine young cricketers are being lost to gig cricket. Look at Weatherly this season. Signed on for the Brave, no doubt made plenty out of it and didn't get a single game, that's not the way to improve our test standard. It's easy money and possibly makes them lazy. I seem to remember  Banton being talked of of being the next big star a couple of years back, think he hardly plays first class cricket nowadays, too busy gleaning money from gig and short format cricket.  

[Hodgey]

Think we are starting to see a huge gap in quality openers, as a young cricketer you are not getting fame and fortune for seeing off the new ball and tricky spells, everyone wants to come in with a softer ball and wack it about. Weatherly an excellent example of just that - failed opener but rewarded for walking it about sometimes further down the order.
Seen so many collapses all round this year. Not sure I can agree with you on the bowlers - they’ve got the joint highest bowling points and with Fuller and Barker, they are a bit wayward sometimes, but they’ve bailed out and outscored our batters on so many occasions.

[Lighthouse]

Decent innings from Dawson, that.

[Barsiem]

Final game of the season then today.  Disappointing team selection tbh.... I would have hoped Prest at least was given a chance, but we've put out a full strength team

[Window Cleaner]

Hants look very flat today, then again so does the wicket.  No Abbott either.  Looks like 4 very uninteresting days.

[Hodgey]

That won’t work for Warks who need a bonus points win. Let’s confirm how flat the pitch is once we have a bat !!

[Window Cleaner]

What a shîte bowler Wheal is.  Why isn't Fuller bowling?

[Window Cleaner]

Hah!  At last a wicket. Sibley chases an awful ball down the leg side and gets caught behind.  Even better  Holland bowls the next batter. On a hat-trick then.

[Window Cleaner]

Some awful batting again this morning. Might not even finish second . The batting coach just has to improve the technique of a lot of players this winter; Either that or get other players into the side. They just can't seem to handle the quick straight'ish ball.

[Hodgey]

Imagine Yorkshire are none too pleased at our recent antics, gifting Kent a win and threatening the same to a Warks side short of their two overseas stars…(despite losing a day to the weather)

[badgerx16]

1 hour ago, Hodgey said:

Imagine Yorkshire are none too pleased at our recent antics, gifting Kent a win and threatening the same to a Warks side short of their two overseas stars…(despite losing a day to the weather)

Possibly, but then again it's Yorkshire.

However, I think we'll rag a draw and Warks will go down

Edited 28 September, 2022 by badgerx16

[Window Cleaner]

2 minutes ago, badgerx16 said:

Possibly, but then again it's Yorkshire.

However, I think we'll rag a draw and Warks will go down

Kent are going to beat Somerset so that's not really on us.  I can see Yorks beating Glos anyway because they're moving towards their target at the moment. Could collapse of couresbut that's on them and not us. Losing second place wouldn't be good though. Perhaps Surrey will bat a bit better second time round.

[Pilchards]

On 22/09/2022 at 15:24, Window Cleaner said:

Although I have no idea whatsoever concerning his contract status, if Warks go down, as they probably will if we beat them next week, I might think that Sibley is just the sort of opener we need. Got over his bad patch and is now scoring runs again on a pretty regular basis.

Certainly need someone to build an innings for us.

Those at the bottom have the same batting points as us which tells you the problem.

Surrey 48 points is staggering compared to our 34 I think.

[Trader]

Hampshire currently in the process of throwing second place away against Warwickshire at 73-5.

I suppose that the positive view from this result is that this will relegate Yorkshire (God's own country - yeah right!) from the top division.

[Pilchards]

Fucking embarrassing with 7 wickets down.

These batting collapses have certainly costs us a title this year.

[Trader]

Absolute tossers.

[Window Cleaner]

Great,  finished the season with a batting shambles, although we did get close enough.  The "committee" surely can't ignore the need for an opener again now.

Depends whether they have the funds available to get a reliable one I suppose.    

[Andrew Watson]

8 minutes ago, Trader said:

Absolute tossers.

Fuller player of season, the bowlers excellent, the batsmen when it really mattered not good enough. what a terrible last 2 games to end an overall very good season. Giles White has recruited some very average players over the years and surely has to go, but seems as safe as Teflon Ralph. Prest has to come in next year with a new solid opener and perhaps we got rid of the wrong player in Alsop and kept the wrong one in Weatherly.

Very, very pissed off and for the record I am a big fan of Rod Bransgrove.

[Barsiem]

Apparently today’s debacle has cost us £145k in prize money!!

[Hodgey]

1 hour ago, Barsiem said:

Apparently today’s debacle has cost us £145k in prize money!!

Not good, and hard not to over-react after what has been an excellent season. I think this loss can be put down to a on the beach scenario, but that doesn’t disguise the continued poor batting. Even here if we had won it would have been down to Barker / Fuller. We’re imbalanced as we have a lot of batsmen who can score well once the ball has softened, but nobody really who can dig in (brown and Vince sometimes). Still we’re clearly not far away…

[Window Cleaner]

2 hours ago, Andrew Watson said:

 perhaps we got rid of the wrong player in Alsop and kept the wrong one in Weatherly.

 

Don't see what difference it makes, they're both one day cricketers. and we have far too many of those already.  For next season we need   at least an opener and a spinner who'll actually play a few championship games.   If we aren't getting Abbas back for the whole season then we'll need another quick bowler, Wheal isn't good enough. Brown hasn't shone with the bat in the later part of the season, I ask myself if we really needed to play him at all with his fingers taped up. There must be other options...musn't there ?

Edited 29 September, 2022 by Window Cleaner

[Hodgey]

hopefully Prest and Currie come of age with another year under their belts. But yes we still need an opener and a spinner, the latter will be easier to find than the former…

[Pilchards]

Sibley going back to Surrey, how many good batsmen do they have?

 

[Window Cleaner]

I'm not convinced that either of them will improve our first team in the near future. Seemingly the selectors aren't either. Prest is erratic as of yet and if he'd been 

capable of opening this season, then I'm sure he would have done so. The fact that we played Brown as a batter with his fingers taped up for the last two games tells me the management don't see Prest as an option-------yet.

Edited 29 September, 2022 by Window Cleaner

[Window Cleaner]

3 minutes ago, Pilchards said:

Sibley going back to Surrey, how many good batsmen do they have?

 

They need all of them.  It's like United and Chelsea, they don't need the players they buy, they need for other teams not to have them.

[Andrew Watson]

Alsop scored 930 runs at 42.2, albeit in Division 2, that is considerably more than any Hants player, but then you seem to be the cricket expert on here. The batsmen cost us the title, even you have to see that.

[Dark Munster]

1 hour ago, Andrew Watson said:

Alsop scored 930 runs at 42.2, albeit in Division 2, that is considerably more than any Hants player, but then you seem to be the cricket expert on here. The batsmen cost us the title, even you have to see that.

They cost Hants the title last year too. It's a shame their very good bowling has been undone by their very poor top order.

[Andrew Watson]

11 hours ago, Dark Munster said:

They cost Hants the title last year too. It's a shame their very good bowling has been undone by their very poor top order.

Exactly that Mark. Apologies to Window Cleaner for the sarcasm in my last post, should no better as an o.a.p. That was the reason I came off the site for 5 years and I see that the vitriol and sarcasm has not abated on the main forum in that time.

[Barsiem]

I do feel we’re missing a little perspective here.  In the CC table we actually have scored the second highest batting bonus points for the year (albeit 11 points behind Surrey, who obvs bat at the Oval).  Only two teams in the league scored more batting points than bowling, which perhaps is a damning indication of the quality of batsmen in the game right now when considering you can get 5 batting bonus points and only 3 bowling.  This is obviously skewed by how early and late in the summer the CC games have been played as well.

Yes the batting is not quite there, and yes the last two games are a very disappointing end to a fabulous season.  Hopefully we can get a very solid opener in and get that little bit better for next year.

[Window Cleaner]

So at the end of the day we lost second place because of the 2 points deducted for slow over rate although Lancs had 6 points deducted for prior misdemeanors.

The moral of all this ? Don't lose matches. 8 points for a draw is better than or the same as all the bonus points that you can obtain in a match.

 

See you all next season.

[Window Cleaner]

Ah! One last reflection on the season.  

Ball changes:  Has to be sorted out. Every time that the bowling side don't think they're getting anywhere fast they start whingeing for a ball change.

Yesterday Gubbins and Fuller didn't look in any particular difficult and then they got the ball changed for one that started zipping about again. It's like having a semi-new ball whenever you fancy it.

I'm not sure what exactly are the criteria for a ball change but they have to be tightened up. It wastes time and breaks up the rythm of the game. 

[Halo Stickman]

5 hours ago, Barsiem said:

I do feel we’re missing a little perspective here.  In the CC table we actually have scored the second highest batting bonus points for the year (albeit 11 points behind Surrey, who obvs bat at the Oval).  Only two teams in the league scored more batting points than bowling, which perhaps is a damning indication of the quality of batsmen in the game right now when considering you can get 5 batting bonus points and only 3 bowling.  This is obviously skewed by how early and late in the summer the CC games have been played as well.

Yes the batting is not quite there, and yes the last two games are a very disappointing end to a fabulous season.  Hopefully we can get a very solid opener in and get that little bit better for next year.

Yes, I agree with this. Although the last couple of results have been hugely disappointing and have tarnished what has otherwise been an excellent campaign in the county championship, overall the season has been a memorable one. Winning the T20 Blast was brilliant and I particularly enjoyed watching our younger players performing so well in the 50 overs competition. However, for me, the holy grail as a Hampshire fan is winning the county championship again—49 years and counting, ffs! At least these past couple of seasons we’ve been up there competing; indeed, had a couple of narrow defeats gone our way, this season’s players could have cemented their place as Hampshire legends. Fine margins.

[Dusic]

Good overall season, but on the Championship stuff quite a bit for the club to consider over the off season.

Batting - clearly need a quality opener, but there aren't many around. Not much to pick between Holland, Weatherley & Organ but Holland's bowling gives him an extra string (assuming Dawson plays Organ's is less needed). Weatherley yet another who is mid 20s yet averages below 25.

Bowling - Abbas, Abbott and Barker not getting any younger, yet also were very available this season. Who are the eventual replacements (a nigh on impossible job IMO)?

Crane Conundrum - is he too much of a luxury player, seeing as CC cricket isn't played when pitches favour spin? But then signing a frontline CC spinner sends such a bad message to him. Perhaps he just isnt as good as was hyped?

[Andrew Watson]

Some very well made points Dusic, the issue is with 

[Andrew Watson]

Giles White in charge, will any of the above issues be solved to us  supporters satisfaction.