As last games go, that one was pretty encouraging, beating a side sprinkled with international experience in a very good team display.
There was no Martin Guptill, but almost everyone contributed down the order, with Wayne Madsen again leading from the front with a fine knock that took him past 450 runs for an average of 44 in the process. Madsen's return to form will be a vital part of next season's plans and the runs will have done him a power of good.
At the end of the innings a partnership between Ross Whiteley and Jonthan Clare was quite apposite in bookending the season. Their batting on the pre-season tour marked them out as ones to watch this year and so it has proved. It would have been good to see them take it to the end, but their departures simply meant that two more young players of potential, Tom Poynton and Peter Burgoyne, saw us across the line, the latter winning the match with a confident four through the covers.
Earlier there was an excellent spell by Tony Palladino and another of remarkable promise by Tom Knight, who dismissed the dangerous Darren Stevens in a spell of eight overs for just 27 runs, better than those achieved by former England man James Tredwell when we batted.
It was good stuff and saw us take third place in the league, a respectable effort from a young side.
In closing tonight, a word of praise for whoever ran the Twitter feed today. I have been critical of it at times this season, but it has improved and today was excellent, ball by ball for the exciting finale. It was high quality work and befits a team that has shown signs of encouraging improvement as the season has progressed.
With prudent recruitment and continued improvement by current personnel over the winter, next season could be another big step forward.
Bring it on!
Very good result, and while it doesn't really matter, I'm pleased with a third place - not to say surprised. I had no expectations of anything in one day cricket this year, but this is a real sign of progress.
ReplyDeleteI know there's a feeling about that we might as well give up and throw young players in at the deep end, but there's a message here for the last two championship matches. If we do well, we can finish third there as well, and make this our best season in ten years. If we lose, however, we could finish next to bottom, with nothing tangible to show for the improvement we have all seen. This means playing our strongest team in the last two games, even if we all have different ideas about what that means.
Interesting to see the various comments on where we need to be looking to strengthen next year. There's depth in batting - even without an overseas opener, we can pick from Madsen, Borrington, Hughes, Durston, Redfern, and Whiteley, with Smith, Park and Lineker still to be decided and some younger players developing. As spinners, we have Knight, Needham and Burgoyne with Smith still to be decided and Hughes and Durston as back up. With so many young players in both groups, or players who have struggled this year, there has to be a question mark over reliability, but I don't see the point of reinforcing either area unless we know absolutely that we are bringing in proven quality that we don't have.
Our fast bowling looks very different. After Groenewald, Clare and Palladino, things look very thin. Smith might not be here ( and if he is we can't carry on talking about him as batter, spinner and seamer), neither Footitt or Turner have shown they can be trusted, and I haven't seen anything that suggest that Whiteley will be more than a useful change bowler. The cupboard looks very bare behind that, and I'm surprised that there has been so little discussion about this. it seems to me to be the one area that is screaming out for strengthening. My choice earlier was Cork, and whether it's him or not, we desperately need an experienced and proven quick bowler. It's interesting to see what Alan Richardson has achieved with Worcestershire (one of our old boys by the way) and shows the value of the ageing seamer in a young attack.