Hampshire OT 4 days 29/8/2024

[happy larry]

6 runs in 6 overs since jennings went ffs before you know it the new ball will be around , How is a sixteen year old kid batting at 4 for a county the size of lancs . Theres so many people stealing a living out of this club unreal.

[anyportinastorm]

Another abject failure looming on the horizon. Time to take Flintoff out of the firing line for a while..and 10 others can go with him. What a farcical season, from Benkenstein to Iyer. I don't see how the DOC and first team coach survive come the end of September. I fear they will.

[Rob]

Balderson out to a horrendous shot. Rabbits in headlights.

[ian]

Just found this forum and opportunity to get some thoughts this season off my chest! One of the worst I can remember. Does Benkenstein and team want to get relegated? Team selection unfathomable, bowling first on good day at OT, batting collapses again, I despair. Just a matter of whether we get relegated in penultimate or last game.

[Admin]

Aug 30, 2024 16:23:44 GMT ian said:

Just found this forum and opportunity to get some thoughts this season off my chest! One of the worst I can remember. Does Benkenstein and team want to get relegated? Team selection unfathomable, bowling first on good day at OT, batting collapses again, I despair. Just a matter of whether we get relegated in penultimate or last game.

Welcome Ian if you want misery you have come to the right forum

[Admin]

Well apparently this perfect batting wicket has us 181-8

[exile]

It's far from being a perfect batting wicket.  It's certainly flat but it's also very slow and requires both patience and technique, neither of them much in evidence from our batters today.  As most people on this forum will have said at one time or another, cricket is played in the mind as well as on the field and Hampshire out-thought and out-smarted Lancs from start to finish.  Unlike Lancs in the morning, who passively clung to an obviously losing strategy, Hampshire were proactive in the field and set traps for each of our batters, into which they all contrived to fall, presumably because their minds are scrambled.  It's difficult to pick the worst dismissal out of so many but probably Bohannon wins the prize for carelessness and Hartley for boneheaded stupidity.  Something is badly wrong somewhere.

[Admin]

Lancashire 193 for 8 (Jennings 56, Dawson 4-46) trail Hampshire 389 (Middleton 109, Dawson 104*, Gubbins 75, Wells 4-94) by 196 runs

Liam Dawson made a superb century and took four wickets as Hampshire built a big advantage after two days of this Vitality County Championship clash at Emirates Old Trafford with Lancashire 193 for eight in their first innings trailing by 196 runs.
The morning session proved to be largely one of frustration for Lancashire as they struggled to take the final Hampshire wicket, the visitors having resumed their first innings on 230 for nine.

Dawson farmed the bowling expertly – Muhammad Abbas only faced 32 balls during their 20 over alliance – and chose his moments to strike the ball cleanly and effectively, adding four more sixes to the one he hit at the end of day one, plus 8 fours.

The Hampshire all-rounder reached his century off 173 balls and his superb innings was a real boost to a Hampshire side who were disappointed by their first day performance with the bat.

It took 78 minutes before Abbas sliced Luke Wells to George Balderson at gully having contributed one run to a damaging last wicket partnership of 72 leaving Dawson unbeaten on 104 with Hampshire 389 all out.



Buoyed by that start the visitors struck with an early wicket when Wells inside edged onto his stumps off Abbott for six just before lunch.

Keaton Jennings and Josh Bohannon countered with an excellent, patient partnership of 90 from 32 overs through the afternoon on a good wicket and with the ball providing little assistance to the bowlers.

Both played with increasing assurance, Jennings reaching his half century from 113 balls and Bohannon passing the milestone of 5,000 runs in first-class cricket when reaching 30.



That forced Hampshire into keeping things tight with Dawson particularly effective from the James Anderson End and that finally paid dividends.

It was the left arm spinner who made the breakthrough just before the tea break, getting the verdict to send back Jennings lbw for 56 and accounting for Rocky Flintoff who top edged an attempted slog/sweep off his tenth delivery that went high to sub fielder Felix Organ at midwicket.

And matters as far as the Red Rose were concerned did not improve after tea as wickets tumbled.

Dawson struck again in the second over with Fletcha Middleton grabbing a bat/pad catch at silly mid-off to dismiss Matty Hurst for 4 before Josh Bohannon drove into the trap at short midwicket off John Turner after making a battling 43.



Turner then picked up a second courtesy of a great diving catch at gully by Toby Albert as Balderson drove at a swinging delivery for 7, meaning five wickets had fallen for 20 runs either side of tea to leave Lancashire struggling on 122 for six.

George Bell and Venkatesh Iyer steadied matters by adding 48 in 18 overs, Iyer whipping Abbott over square leg for six but falling to an outstanding catch on 27 when the left hander drove Abbott to cover where Fuller pulled off a sensational one-handed diving grab.



Appropriately it was Dawson, playing his 200th first-class match, who took the final wicket of the day from a marathon unchanged 28 over spell at the James Anderson End when Tom Hartley slogged to James Vince running back from mid-off for 2, the left arm spinner finishing with four for 46.

Bell is unbeaten on 33 alongside Tom Bailey (6 not out) and Lancashire have got a big battle on to stay in this game tomorrow.



Keaton Jennings pulled no punches at the end of a poor day for the Red Rose.

“It was very frustrating,” he admitted. “You walk off on day one where we’re really happy with that sort of score and then this morning we were fairly poor (with the ball). Then you get to 100 for one when you bat and then are 80 for seven in the last couple of hours.

“It’s hard to put your finger on exactly is wrong, whether it’s decision making – it’s one of those things.

“Guys need to look at themselves, nobody’s making excuses, but fundamentally you have to compete.

“First-class cricket is a tough place. There’s nothing given to you for free.

“You’ve got some fiercely competitive guys playing against us. Some international caps, an international bowling line-up and those are the challenges Division One cricket gives you.

“As a whole we try to make sure we blood young guys into the squad. We’ve had an older squad for a period of time and we’ve now got quite a lot of the young guys coming through at the same time.



“In one respect it is exciting for guys to be playing first team cricket but at the same they are finding out pretty quickly what the standards are required in order to compete against international cricketers.

“It’s tough. We had an average of 23 years last week and it’s not much older this week.

“So it’s for guys to learn quickly. We do have a dressing room that guys all learn quick and adapt. They’ve been honest, and stuck together and I take my hat off to them from that point of view.

“It’s about standing up when times get tough.

“When it all goes well, you crack on and bounce around each other. When things go poorly you need to come up with a plan and do it quickly.”

“You forget how young some of these lads are. They don’t have a heap of first class caps or the experience. What you do have is high quality that is going to learn and grow for the future.

“It’s a tough baptism of fire now, but it’s for those guys to learn quickly and develop even quicker.”

Ken Grime

[exile]

Jennings overdoes the stress on the youth of the team.  It wasn't the young players who came up with the brain-dead morning tactic of not trying to get Dawson out.  It's true that Flintoff got a rush of blood to the head but so did Hartley and the first rash shot of the Lancs innings was played by 34 year old Wells.  Bohannon knew that Hants had posted a short midwicket for his favourite shot but he played the shot anyway.  Balderson fenced at a ball he should have left.  Iyer completed his undistinguished spell at Lancs with a chip to a fielder put there for the shot.  Only Jennings and Hurst did not get out to rash shots: Jennings (arguably sawn off) was deceived by Dawson's flight into playing back when he should have gone forward and Hurst just got a good one that jumped and turned.  Youngster Bell has shown admirable patience so far.  Unlike at The Oval, I don't think there's any case for implying that our dire situation in this match is due to the youth of the team.       

[sillypoint]

Aug 30, 2024 12:37:09 GMT exile said:

Pretty awful morning for Lancs, capped by Wells yet again dragging on with an over-aggressive shot.  I hate to agree with Allott but we as good as gave Dawson his century by not trying to get him out.  We've seen Lancs use this hopeless approach over so many years that I wonder if it's become part of the club's culture.  Dawson is a good all-rounder and has had a good season with the bat but there's a reason why he bats at 6.  Even when we finally did dismiss Abbas it was only because the latter had become over-confident (as predicted by the Hants commentator).  Those 59 runs might come back to bite us.

I agree with Gareth that it's right to bring promising young players into the first team but the proven way of doing this successfully is to have one or two of them play alongside more experienced and established team mates, rather than dropping a whole bunch of them in at the deep end as happened at The Oval.       

It's not just Lancashire who use this failed tactic. It's endemic within cricket as a whole. I think it was Einstein who said "Insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results."

[MickeyG]

Lancs lasting 6 mins this morning. Scott Read blaming Lancs poor form on the failure of the overseas players. That doesn't explain why everyone else has been ****.

[MickeyG]

Kevan James trying to talk Lancs batting chances up. Should be over today this.

[exile]

Bell, having played properly yesterday, succumbs to the disease of rash shot-making.  Quite a contrast between our approach to finishing off the innings and that of Hampshire but, of course, their set batter didn't give it away.  Will Wells get double figures? 

[alanw]

I don't think the comments made by Jennings are very supportive of the young players. Maybe he's frustrated after carrying the batting the whole season,

The team selection has been wrong we should have played Morley or Williams instead of Iyer. I'm sure Iyer was only selected because it would reflect badly on the DOC and coaching staff to have two overseas players in one season who weren't good enough to get into the team. Rocky Flintoff should not be batting at 4. Other young batsmen (Matty Hurst, Bohannon, Livingstone) have started their careers batting at 7 in the championship.

Des made the comment yesterday that relegation might be a good thing. I started thinking in the Surrey game with such a young squad they would be better learning the game against weaker opposition and would hopefully enjoy success which would bring promotion. In might also force the issue with the DOC and coaching staff. I'm struggling to see how Chilton can continue but perhaps if we get to T20 finals day nothing else matters.

[alanw]

Aug 31, 2024 10:13:45 GMT MickeyG said:

Kevan James trying to talk Lancs batting chances up. Should be over today this.

Probably part of the cunning plan to give us an extra rest day before our 20 over slog on Wednesday.