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CC :: Middlesex v Durham

In recent years we've had to rely on the bowling attack to get anywhere, especially after the FTECB enforced relegation. Now the batting has been strengthened we fail to bowl teams out or take a few early wickets then run out of ideas and the game drifts off and the opposition recover. Ironically we seem to have addressed the batting problem but now can't rely on the bowling attack. Badgers captaincy can be questioned at times but who else is willing to do the job? The impression I get is that no one is willing to skipper the team, apart from Badger. After being very optimistic before the season started its now gone tits up, thing is its hard for me to put a finger on what the exact problem is. Dry wickets for this time of year, shit balls, incompetent coaching etc there's loads of factors there.

Then there's England taking players. I was talking to a few Worcestershire members the other week who were complaining none of their players gets a look in for England as their not a fashionable County. And there was me sat there whingeing on about how many players we kept losing to the England set up. I suppose it's classed as an honour to have players called up for England but the problem we have is that we are in the lower half of the Second Division which we are struggling to get out of. It would be different if we were in the upper half of the First Division as it would be more easy to accept.
 

Dorlonco said:
In recent years we've had to rely on the bowling attack to get anywhere, especially after the FTECB enforced relegation. Now the batting has been strengthened we fail to bowl teams out or take a few early wickets then run out of ideas and the game drifts off and the opposition recover. Ironically we seem to have addressed the batting problem but now can't rely on the bowling attack. Badgers captaincy can be questioned at times but who else is willing to do the job? The impression I get is that no one is willing to skipper the team, apart from Badger. After being very optimistic before the season started its now gone tits up, thing is its hard for me to put a finger on what the exact problem is. Dry wickets for this time of year, shit balls, incompetent coaching etc there's loads of factors there.

Then there's England taking players. I was talking to a few Worcestershire members the other week who were complaining none of their players gets a look in for England as their not a fashionable County. And there was me sat there whingeing on about how many players we kept losing to the England set up. I suppose it's classed as an honour to have players called up for England but the problem we have is that we are in the lower half of the Second Division which we are struggling to get out of. It would be different if we were in the upper half of the First Division as it would be more easy to accept.
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The record under Franklin speaks for itself, he's just not good enough and lets be honest wasn't fully committed last season when he left for the 100.

I've always wondered if Raine would make a good captain, I guess we'll never find out.

We need a change of coach who is fully committed to the role, it just isn't working with Franklin.

In the interim I'd promote Gidman and Walker and bin Franklin off. If he had an ounce of respect he would resign,
 
GordonMuchallNo1Fan said:
Raine is the only one who looks organised and as I said earlier he has been our overall (bat and ball) consistent performer.

I was embarrassed what I witnessed in the field last Friday vs Glamorgan.
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I vaguely recall after he left Leicestershire their radio pundit said they had lost a leader on the field. He's one of the most vocal players, along with Borthwick..."one big over lads".
Dorlonco said:
The impression I get is that no one is willing to skipper the team, apart from Badger.
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As per above, Raine already seems to lead on the field and is as vocal as Borthwick in games. I'd rather SB sorted things out though, maybe he would with another coach.
 
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The Rat said:
No comment
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Well if they were, I would say that it highly impacted the result.
Obviously can't comment as a Sunderland fan and you may all see it differently, but I think that's highly unprofessional and they should be pulled up for it.
If indeed it happened.
 
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wayne entwhistle no9 said:
What's people's view on Stokes in his 3 matches? Personally I didn't expect him to be going flat out but I thought he would be a bit more focused. It felt at times he was playing in one of those practice matches England play on tour when it's 15 a side.
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My view is that he used these three games to satisfy his own ends as opposed to doing what was right for the team.

I apologise in advance if that seems harsh, if I’ve got it wrong then I apologise too to Ben Stokes.

BUT, it appears, with the benefit of hindsight that Stokes didn’t really play the situation at any point. The innings at Worcester, possibly the only exception, was an absolute joy to watch, but he was able to cut loose with such wreckless abandon because of the platform others had set. Unfortunately I think 2, possibly 3 of his dismissals in other games were due more to a wreckless disregard for the team and the situation. His bowling too has been incredibly frustrating, he’s probably only given us one spell of anything worthwhile in the three games - again, I understand he’s feeling his way into the summer, but the team needed so much more from him and at certain points over the last three games, when the situation seemed absolutely perfect for one of his spells of aggressive, hostile bowling, he was completely MIA.

Which leads for me onto a bigger issue: ‘The England Problem’

I guess we’ll never know the real reason, but why was Potts not playing in this one? He’s the leading wicket taker in the country by some distance, he’s been far and away our best bowler and his omission from this game was a massive problem for us. Were Durham obeying orders? Did Potts ask to be rested due to his head being turned? Perhaps following a quiet word from the England captain?

I don’t know the answer. What I do know though is that for the next run of Championship games it’s highly likely we’ll have FOUR players missing due to England duty. That’s before we consider Carse and the potential that he has with regards to an international future.

I think a lot of us have been guilty of overlooking just how much of an impact this will have. I joke about the old phrase ‘a strong Durham means a strong England’ but unfortunately there’s a lot of truth in it. What it means on the back end for us is that Durham are significantly weakened when England come calling. How many other counties could do with losing four players to England? It’s probably quite remarkable that we’ve been able to compete to the level we have in recent seasons when you consider the numbers, but simply looking to the here and now, the two defeats on the season are to the two sides who look most likely to challenge for the title. They have ONE England player between them. AND, he’s already been factored in to Notts’ thinking. In fact, looking at the bigger picture, the number of players in the England squad from second division clubs that aren’t Durham: 1 (ONE). The number from Durham: 3 (THREE). Plus Mark Wood, who has effectively ceased to be a Durham player due to England mismanagement.

At the halfway stage of the season, we’re already out of the promotion race. It would likely take 5 wins from the 7 remaining games to get anywhere near to challenging and that just isn’t going to happen. It’s bitterly disappointing and others will have their own opinion of why we are where we are, but as much as it pains me to say it - until we can solve ‘The England Problem’ I’m not sure we’ll be going anywhere near promotion for a while yet.

I’ve always been happy with the players the club has brought in from overseas, but I’ve been pleasantly surprised with how the batting has improved this season from a few unlikely sources and perhaps it would be best if the club have a rethink for their next couple of picks. Bedingham is worth his weight in gold, but the second overseas slot certainly could probably do with being focussed on a strike bowler.
 
brandon said:
My view is that he used these three games to satisfy his own ends as opposed to doing what was right for the team.

I apologise in advance if that seems harsh, if I’ve got it wrong then I apologise too to Ben Stokes.

BUT, it appears, with the benefit of hindsight that Stokes didn’t really play the situation at any point. The innings at Worcester, possibly the only exception, was an absolute joy to watch, but he was able to cut loose with such wreckless abandon because of the platform others had set. Unfortunately I think 2, possibly 3 of his dismissals in other games were due more to a wreckless disregard for the team and the situation. His bowling too has been incredibly frustrating, he’s probably only given us one spell of anything worthwhile in the three games - again, I understand he’s feeling his way into the summer, but the team needed so much more from him and at certain points over the last three games, when the situation seemed absolutely perfect for one of his spells of aggressive, hostile bowling, he was completely MIA.

Which leads for me onto a bigger issue: ‘The England Problem’

I guess we’ll never know the real reason, but why was Potts not playing in this one? He’s the leading wicket taker in the country by some distance, he’s been far and away our best bowler and his omission from this game was a massive problem for us. Were Durham obeying orders? Did Potts ask to be rested due to his head being turned? Perhaps following a quiet word from the England captain?

I don’t know the answer. What I do know though is that for the next run of Championship games it’s highly likely we’ll have FOUR players missing due to England duty. That’s before we consider Carse and the potential that he has with regards to an international future.

I think a lot of us have been guilty of overlooking just how much of an impact this will have. I joke about the old phrase ‘a strong Durham means a strong England’ but unfortunately there’s a lot of truth in it. What it means on the back end for us is that Durham are significantly weakened when England come calling. How many other counties could do with losing four players to England? It’s probably quite remarkable that we’ve been able to compete to the level we have in recent seasons when you consider the numbers, but simply looking to the here and now, the two defeats on the season are to the two sides who look most likely to challenge for the title. They have ONE England player between them. AND, he’s already been factored in to Notts’ thinking. In fact, looking at the bigger picture, the number of players in the England squad from second division clubs that aren’t Durham: 1 (ONE). The number from Durham: 3 (THREE). Plus Mark Wood, who has effectively ceased to be a Durham player due to England mismanagement.

At the halfway stage of the season, we’re already out of the promotion race. It would likely take 5 wins from the 7 remaining games to get anywhere near to challenging and that just isn’t going to happen. It’s bitterly disappointing and others will have their own opinion of why we are where we are, but as much as it pains me to say it - until we can solve ‘The England Problem’ I’m not sure we’ll be going anywhere near promotion for a while yet.

I’ve always been happy with the players the club has brought in from overseas, but I’ve been pleasantly surprised with how the batting has improved this season from a few unlikely sources and perhaps it would be best if the club have a rethink for their next couple of picks. Bedingham is worth his weight in gold, but the second overseas slot certainly could probably do with being focussed on a strike bowler.
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I dont agree with all this mind,I absolutely love Durham, but the most important thing it can do is produce international cricketers. Which it does.

Matty Potts has bowled more overs than most seamers in the country, think its fair enough he got a break.

Also Mark Wood wasnt mismanaged, he will always get injuries.

There is no "England problem", I not really sure what you mean, or what you suggest. These lads play the game to hopefully play for England one day, thats why you get into it. There is no solution to it, if we produce top class players, they will get picked for England, nothing we can do about it
 
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The Rat said:
I dont agree with all this mind,I absolutely love Durham, but the most important thing it can do is produce international cricketers. Which it does.
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It’s possible to do both. We’ve won Championships whilst also having multiple players in the England side.

The Rat said:
There is no "England problem", I not really sure what you mean, or what you suggest.
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I don’t think you do understand. Perhaps you’re taking the word ‘problem’ too literally. The paragraph above is the ‘solution’, how we get there of course is the ‘problem’ we currently face.

Number of players we’re losing to England - 3 (THREE)

Number of players the rest of the Division is losing to England - 1 (ONE)

I get that it’s a good thing, a good problem to have, if you will. I know full well too that it is our entire raison d'être.

BUT you still need to acknowledge it’s detrimental to the clubs own domestic progress and that is an issue that still needs to be addressed. Yorkshire have a similar problem and they’ve had it for years, yet they still win titles and they’re still competing for another one this year too.

It’s something that needs to be resolved and it’s definitely something that is worthy of discussion.

I don’t have the answers, but the overseas suggestion I put forward is one idea. I know Beefy and North have mentioned in the past that counties should be better compensated for producing England players - that’s probably a discussion for a different day, but either way it’s out of the clubs control. Recruitment however is within the clubs control and there’s a discussion to be had around that.
 
brandon said:
It’s possible to do both. We’ve won Championships whilst also having multiple players in the England side.



I don’t think you do understand. Perhaps you’re taking the word ‘problem’ too literally. The paragraph above is the ‘solution’, how we get there of course is the ‘problem’ we currently face.

Number of players we’re losing to England - 3 (THREE)

Number of players the rest of the Division is losing to England - 1 (ONE)

I get that it’s a good thing, a good problem to have, if you will. I know full well too that it is our entire raison d'être.

BUT you still need to acknowledge it’s detrimental to the clubs own domestic progress and that is an issue that still needs to be addressed. Yorkshire have a similar problem and they’ve had it for years, yet they still win titles and they’re still competing for another one this year too.

It’s something that needs to be resolved and it’s definitely something that is worthy of discussion.

I don’t have the answers, but the overseas suggestion I put forward is one idea. I know Beefy and North have mentioned in the past that counties should be better compensated for producing England players - that’s probably a discussion for a different day, but either way it’s out of the clubs control. Recruitment however is within the clubs control and there’s a discussion to be had around that.
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Ah I see what you mean more, well yeah I mean sounds like you mean about the coaching and recruitment then, which is probs right

I suspect they probably didnt think Matty Potts would be in England squads this year with how far down he was.

We should have signed a bowler before the season mind, overseas, that was my view.

Petersen is OK but its not what we needed.
 
wayne entwhistle no9 said:
What's people's view on Stokes in his 3 matches? Personally I didn't expect him to be going flat out but I thought he would be a bit more focused. It felt at times he was playing in one of those practice matches England play on tour when it's 15 a side.
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He's something of an enigma on his rare appearances for Durham. His well documented innings against Worcs was of course sensational but on the downside his bowling in the Glamorgan game would have been embarrassing had he bowled it in the nets never mind in the actual game. Interestingly he never bowled in the second innings and spent most of the final day fielding in the deep.

In the game at Lords he appeared to be bending his back a little more but his dismissal in the first innings against Middlesex was the height of irresponsibility.
 
The Rat said:
the most important thing it can do is produce international cricketers
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Being in division 2 is dangerous for Durham while influential people are talking about reducing the size of county cricket. I suspect some would be happy for Durham to be a feeder club to Yorkshire or some Northern Supercharger style red ball franchise. We're fortunate there are Durham people in the England set-up at the moment, so our players stand a good chance of being picked without changing club. Six years ago this wasn't the case and we lost most of our international standard players to Div 1 clubs. This needs to be born in mind when weighing up success versus investing in youth. We don't owe FTECB anything.

brandon said:
Number of players we’re losing to England - 3 (THREE)
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Wood, Lees and Stokes were known about well before the start of the season. As was Carse's injury. Coughlin is always an injury risk.

Nobody expected Matty Potts to come out of the blocks like he has but Carse is a regular Lions fixture and has played ODI's so there was a known risk we could lose one seamer to England.

Q: Who did DCCC sign to mitigate these risks?
A: Nobody. They were expecting to field kids.

If Dickson had turned in performances like '20 and '21 we'd be opening the batting with Jones and Crawshaw in August. We played a young seamer who clearly wasn't ready in the second and third match. Not as part of his development strategy, but due to lack of alternate options. It's the sort of thing you do in a dead rubber not the second game of a season where you're purportedly pushing for promotion. It feels like DCCC were happy to simply tread water this season.

(Edit: forgot we signed Drissell. This is straight cover for Trevaskis though, doesn't mitigate any of the above risk)
 
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Glad I took the rest of the game off. Shocked to see we lost in the end.

Going through a bit of this thread and see chops is still causing arguments. No idea why anyone hasn't just used ignore, derails almost every thread on here these days like
 
smoker said:
As was Carse's injury.
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I think (sort of) the opposite - it seems like far too much faith was placed on the idea of carse coming back in and providing a real filip when the lad has barely played cricket in forever. Either way it's bad planning

No argument with the rest of it like
 
wayne entwhistle no9 said:
What's people's view on Stokes in his 3 matches? Personally I didn't expect him to be going flat out but I thought he would be a bit more focused. It felt at times he was playing in one of those practice matches England play on tour when it's 15 a side.
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Certainly looked like that to me in the 1st 2 days at Lords (which is all I saw)

And sadly, despite his ability, my impression is that Petersen is much the same - here for the benefit of SA and not Durham 🙁

I’m looking forward to the T20 for a bit of a break. I don’t dislike it as much as some on here and I do think it’s a great way of introducing newcomers to cricket (my daughter and 2 nephews being 3 of these when they were little uns). Maybe some of those students from that game last season (Northants?) might put in an appearance and invest some of their student loans in the club 😁
 
mosi said:
Certainly looked like that to me in the 1st 2 days at Lords (which is all I saw)

And sadly, despite his ability, my impression is that Petersen is much the same - here for the benefit of SA and not Durham 🙁

I’m looking forward to the T20 for a bit of a break. I don’t dislike it as much as some on here and I do think it’s a great way of introducing newcomers to cricket (my daughter and 2 nephews being 3 of these when they were little uns). Maybe some of those students from that game last season (Northants?) might put in an appearance and invest some of their student loans in the club 😁
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The Nathan buck army?

I'll be using it as a reason to get up whitburn more often, where I can watch my favourite ever cricketer, jack burnham
 
mosi said:
Certainly looked like that to me in the 1st 2 days at Lords (which is all I saw)

And sadly, despite his ability, my impression is that Petersen is much the same - here for the benefit of SA and not Durham 🙁

I’m looking forward to the T20 for a bit of a break. I don’t dislike it as much as some on here and I do think it’s a great way of introducing newcomers to cricket (my daughter and 2 nephews being 3 of these when they were little uns). Maybe some of those students from that game last season (Northants?) might put in an appearance and invest some of their student loans in the club 😁
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Stokes was really poor like I have to be tbh.
 
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