Durham match thread 2022

[Durhamfootman]

he looks a better signing with every match he plays

[Durhamfootman]

100 comes up in the 14th over

[Durhamfootman]

Another ton for Dicko... 4 for the season in 5 matches

target is 87,000.... just to be safe!

Stokes got his off 64 balls with 17 sixes and Dicko got his off 69 balls with 8 sixes

[captaincolly]

Could have done with at least one more wicket. Looks like it isn't going to be easy but I'd still expect us to win, despite our failure to do so against Leicestershire and Glamorgan

[Durhamfootman]

Rushy bowled well though.

For some reason Stokes was dealing exclusively in short pitched bowling which the batters either ducked out of the way of or pulled for four.... Practice for England perhaps

Pottsy got a bit of a flogging at times, but then he was unusually wayward.. drifted short and got pulled or drifted wide and got driven to the boundary. Seemed to have an eye on the speed gun rather than the job in hand, maybe with the England capt watching

Rushy was bang on the money. He bowled a good length in the Boycs corridor of uncertainty. Picked up 2 early wickets and got Azhar, on 5, to nick off to 3rd slip. Unfortunately we only had a 1000 run lead to defend so after Pottsy had conceded a few fours 3rd slip had been moved somewhere else. The stable door was closed for the next ball and stayed that way when Rushy was bowling.

Azhar had a charmed start, because a couple of overs later Pottsy trapped him in front, but for some reason the finger didn't go up. No indication that there was any bat involved... bang in front. It didn't look particularly high to me, but then we had switched to the short stuff, so maybe that was in the back of the umpires mind

Once Rushy came out of the attack, and the other 3 seamers concentrated on banging it in a bit too short and a bit too wide there were no more alarms for the batting side.... they either left the ball or thumped it to the boundary

Work to do tomorrow, but hopefully we can think about how Rushy took his wickets and adjust. A couple of early wickets will be essential, because as they showed today, Worcs bat pretty deep and other than the odd low ball, there are no demons in the pitch

[Durhamfootman]

Going to be a long day by the looks of it

in the absence of a clatter of early wickets I have no confidence in our ability to bowl our way to victory

see you all at 6.30

[westoelad]

Going to be a long day by the looks of it

in the absence of a clatter of early wickets I have no confidence in our ability to bowl our way to victory

see you all at 6.30

Worcestershire will have knocked the runs off by then which will be no bad thing because management might then realize that our 2nd overseas needs to be a bowler.

[Durhamfootman]

astonishing!

new ball nearly due and we haven't taken a single wicket all day. We simply have to hope that the new ball brings a complete turnaround in fortunes

Like Leicester a couple of weeks ago, Worcs have just dropped anchor and we have nothing in the armoury to do anything about it

[Durhamfootman]

Going to be a long day by the looks of it

in the absence of a clatter of early wickets I have no confidence in our ability to bowl our way to victory take 2 wickets on a final day
see you all at 6.30

edited

[captaincolly]

Could have done with at least one more wicket. Looks like it isn't going to be easy but I'd still expect us to win, despite our failure to do so against Leicestershire and Glamorgan

That hasn't aged well! Should have known better.
I haven't followed the play closely but couldn't Worcestershire have been a bit more pro-active once it became apparent we weren't going to bowl them out?

[Durhamfootman]

how is it even possible to score 580 runs dec in double quick time and still have to settle for a draw?

[Durhamfootman]

At some point we are going to have to realise that if we get a big first innings total and end up with a really big lead, then we are going have to enforce the follow on, because this batting again and resting the bowlers nonsense just isn't working. And it's not just here, around the grounds week after week, the teams batting last are often batting out the final day.

[Durhamfootman]

I get the argument about resting the strike bowlers ahead of that final innings, but frankly we'd already rested ours before taking the new ball in Worcs first innings. We got one of the two wickets we needed with the second delivery of the new ball, so if we hadn't then allowed the last pair to block for 20 overs they wouldn't have needed a rest and we could have got straight back into them by enforcing the follow on

what batting again does is prompt an already cautious captain to want far more runs than we actually need in case we don't bowl them out and end up losing. Enforcing the follow on means that we can set more aggressive fields, so that we don't give a batter who scores 92 off 220 balls two lives when he's still on 5, secure in the knowledge that if they do go past us then we still have another innings. It takes all the jeopardy out of the declaration. If they then bat for two days, because our bowlers are a bit tired (and they only got to put their feet up for an hour and a half anyway) then we don't deserve to win but we still won't lose

we can't keep on batting again to set a target, because we've tried that 3 times and 3 times we've been lucky to take 2 or 3 wickets on that final day as teams just block their way to 8 points

[Durhamfootman]

apart from anything else, it's hard for a team that is long way behind and made to follow on to block for 2 days trying to take time out of the game in the first innings and then negotiate the second. At some point the opposition has to try and set a target they can defend and that means upping their tempo which gives us opportunities, especially with more aggressive fields

The similarities between this and the Leicester game are striking. We had a big lead, we batted again, Both sides put 9 men out deep, both sets of bowlers targeted the wide lines just to slow down our scoring as much as they could. We scored far more runs than we otherwise would have needed to make sure we didn't lose and both sides blocked their way to a draw with absolute ease. We took 3 wickets total in 2 final days of bowling

no wonder the bowlers need rests

what we'll end up doing is bowling our bowlers into the ground and onto the physios table

[westoelad]

It takes both teams to have positive intent to create an interesting finish. Particularly disappointed with Worcs -thought,if anything,our declaration was on the generous side-442 at 3.75 per over on a flat track. We exceeded that rate throughout the game.