My last preview of another season in which blog visiting figures have been broken and it seems to have flown by. A sure sign of having fun, as the old saying goes...
We visit Lord's tomorrow for the final four days of cricket this summer, which is not the worst place in the country to reach a conclusion. It affords a quick opportunity to put the travails of Saturday behind us and give the supporters a last winter warmer, before we replace baseball caps with woolly hats and follow the lesser sports of winter.
A squad of thirteen has been announced which holds no real surprises. I'd be surprised if Alex Hughes plays, but it would be nice to see Sam Conners get a run out at the end of a truncated season, to see what he might offer another year.
The squad as announced:
Godleman, Reece, Madsen, du Plooy, Hosein, Hudson-Prentice, Critchley, Dal, McKernan, Conners, Rampaul, Melton, Hughes
McKiernan v Conners for the final place, I think, both of them keen to have a bowl in senior cricket before the season end, having had seasons too truncated for either of their satisfaction.
It would thus appear that Logan van Beek has played his last game for the club, barring a close season contract offer that would surprise pretty much everyone. No one will ever doubt his commitment to the cause, because he gave a hundred per cent in every game, but the statistics on which cricketers stand or fall do not add up for the genial Kiwi.
More on him later, but tomorrow's game could, if one believes reports in the weekend media, be the last for Middlesex by Dawid Malan, apparently a target for Yorkshire. The white rose county seem to be heading into Nottinghamshire territory, though this will be worth watching, as he has two years on his current deal.
Whether it makes any difference to a potential Derbyshire move for Tom Lace is the angle in which I am most concerned.
With the consecutive seasons they have had, I'd be surprised if Middlesex don't look to allocate a batting spot for Lace regardless of whether Malan stays or not. Stirling is definitely on his way and none of Robson, Eskinazi or Gubbins have shown any consistency. Would be a real shame to lose Lace.
ReplyDeleteShare your view re Van Beek; attitude has been good but hasn't shown the cutting edge required to justify an overseas spot. I'd expected some more on the batting front. I'm really not sure about McKiernan PF; why didn't he bowl against Sussex whereas Madsen did. Feel that there are enough bits and pieces players so for me it would be Connors who gets the nod for this one.
I hope Connors gets included tomorrow. At the start of the season,the feeling was we had three young, developing, fast bowlers, but we've let Taylor and Gleadale go (even though Taylor played this summer for England under-19s). We need to nurture some young bowlers through the academy system, especially as Ravi and Dino are nearing the end of their careers - yet Stevens is 43 and still not only taking wickets but also scoring runs.
ReplyDeleteLogan van Beek hasn't really come off. I seem to recall him being announced as an all-rounder when he signed. But he's most definitely not. I really wanted him to do well, as he seems a lovely bloke, but it hasn't happened.
Regarding McKiernan, I know very little about him, but I was surprised he didn't bowl against Sussex, as he was in the side as a spinner, not a batsman.
I think the answer on McKiernan was partly that Sussex folded so quickly that there was very little need to give the quicker bowlers a rest even without Palladino and Critchley took priority. Madsen bowled a few overs in the first innings which I thought was a deliberate (and successful) ploy to get Robinson out, and his overs in the second innings I suspect were just to get the over-rate up before the last wicket fell. He was firing the ball way outside off stump at Reece Topley, which was either the most bizarre way of getting out perhaps the worst no 11 in the country, or a deliberate attempt not to get him out until the over rate was safe. Either way, it's not a reflection on McKiernan, who if both teams had batted with due care and attention in the first innings, would probably have had plenty of work in the last innings.
ReplyDeleteI'm with Lion in the thought that Middlesex should keep Lace regardless of what Malan decides to do. I'm not convinced that there's anything in the Malan / Yorkshire story as he's Middlesex through and through, and will know full well that with Ed Smith's tendency to select players from Middlesex and Kent whenever the opportunity arises, his chances of an England return will be reduced. I also recall that Yorkshire sources were busily reporting a bid for Madsen this time last year, almost as though they try to distract their vociferously unhappy supporters with a possible big new signing to offset another year of failure.
With Lace averaging more than Malan and Simpson, the only 2 Middlesex batsmen to have good seasons, well ahead of Robson and well over twice that of Gubbins, Eskinazi and Holden, you would have thought it would be simple for Stuart Law to give him the undertakings about opportunities that would surely keep him at his home club. I'm also sure that he's going to be on England's radar (as per Ed Smith's Middlesex connection mentioned above) and it's not going to help that coming to Derbyshire if he's given any assurance of sufficient cricket at Middlesex next year.But the whole Middlesex thing has been so mystifying in the way that they have cemented in the same players who took them down two years ago and kept them their last year, that it's not impossible to believe that they will let him go. Then again, he might look at the trajectory of the two counties and his relationship with David Houghton and think that his best chance of progression lies with us.
The weather looks likely to have its way with this game but otherwise it gives us the chance to finish in a respectable fifth position that broadly reflects how our season has gone, or to finish second bottom, which would be a gross misrepresentation of a season when two decent hours of cricket against Glamorgan and Durham could have seen us promoted. Having been losing semi-finalists on Saturday, the latter would tend to define our season for most outside observers, so hopefully the spirit of last week's win will be conjured up again to overwhelm a despondent and exhausted Middlesex who look as if they just want the season to end.
Excellent comments, notoveryet.
DeleteSurprising news re Qadri going to Kent?
ReplyDelete