AFTER our performance in the innings and 117-run defeat to Sussex at Hove, where we were very poor in all aspects of the game, there has to be some changes to the side.
Hopefully, the players who will come in for this week’s LV= County Championship Division One game at Warwickshire can give the squad a good shake-up and maybe a slight change to the balance of the team can freshen things up a bit.
Some of these changes are much-needed and the performance at Hove was unacceptable — we were bitterly disappointed.
Sometimes you don’t mind losing if you gave your all and were outdone by a better side on the day, but we didn’t turn up against Sussex and it was as bad a performance as I have seen.
We were put in to bat in difficult circumstances and the ball did seam around, but you have to see those tough periods through. We didn’t do that.
Alan Richardson was probably the exception, as he put in a great effort with the ball, but unfortunately he wasn’t backed up.
We played reasonably well in the Clydesdale Bank 40 game with Middlesex at Uxbridge on Sunday, but Eoin Morgan’s innings was fantastic and a great example of one-day batting.
We needed to make a good start and Nick Harrison and Jack Shantry bowled really well, as did Gaz Andrew when he came on.
Middlesex were under pressure at 67-4, but Morgan played excellently, timed his innings well and cashed in when they took the power-play late on.
Their total of 229-4 was decent — slightly above-par and a few more than we’d hoped for after the start we’d had.
Unfortunately, similarly to them, we didn’t make a great start to our reply and were 19-2 at one stage.
Phil Hughes and I rebuilt the innings a bit but, from a personal point of view, I used up more balls than I would have liked in my 35.
However, Hughesy batted really well and Gaz added a great cameo knock of 42 off 33 balls, before Ben Scott’s heroics at the death to hit 23 off the last over and grab a tie.
It was looking like we wouldn’t get anything out of the game after Morgan’s hundred, but it just goes to show what a crazy game cricket can be.
Hopefully, Scotty is getting back to normal with the bat now as it is unlike him to have struggled for runs so much this season and this result — alongside his important hundred in our four-day win at Lancashire — should give him a confidence boost.
We are in Championship action from tomorrow with the short trip to our local rivals Warwickshire.
They are a fantastic outfit who are pushing for the title, while our business is at the other end of the table.
Their batting is strong and they bat deep with people like Chris Woakes coming in at eight or nine and scoring hundreds.
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