Durham Match Thread 2025

[captaincolly]

Popped down this afternoon. Straightforward win, runs for Borthwick and Gay but McKinney and Robinson out cheaply.

[Durhamfootman]

9 wickets for the spinners today

[Durhamfootman]

the women got a spanking off Zimbabwe in the third match. All out for 80 odd after being set a 120 target and despite getting to 42 before the first wicket fell

[captaincolly]

the women got a spanking off Zimbabwe in the third match. All out for 80 odd after being set a 120 target and despite getting to 42 before the first wicket fell

Oh dear!

[Durhamfootman]

Sounds familiar, doesn’t it?

[captaincolly]

Sounds familiar, doesn’t it?

Very familiar!

[westoelad]

Very informative and interesting podcast with Tim Bostock in interview. His views on the format of future cricket seasons from 2026,finances involving Hundred windfall,the hotel and Saudi investment.
https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/t ... 1194470795

[westoelad]

I'm a converted Luddite

[captaincolly]

Very informative and interesting podcast with Tim Bostock in interview. His views on the format of future cricket seasons from 2026,finances involving Hundred windfall,the hotel and Saudi investment.
https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/t ... 1194470795

Very interesting podcast. Thanks for posting it.

[Durhamfootman]

thanks for that WL

[captaincolly]

Have been thinking about some of his ideas, not sure I agree with all of them but the idea of cutting the T20 down to 10 games and playing the first part of the 50 over Cup at the start of the season sound good to me.
He seems to have thought long and hard about it all and I'm impressed.

[Durhamfootman]

except that we always used to play the 50 over stuff in April and the T20 used to be 10 games, so he's really just looked backwards and then cut the CC by 2 matches

One of the reasons that I got so cross about the reduction in games for members whilst the workload for players just increased anyway, is that this reduction was never really reflected in the membership fees. We used to get 5 home 50 over matches, 4 home 40 over games and 8 home CC matches. They got rid of the 40 over stuff, then cut the CC by a game, with no reflection in the subs. Then they included the pre-expansion T20 matches, that most members didn't go to, because they didn't like it, but that was more to try and bolster the pathetic attendances than give something back for the members sake. They then chopped the 50 over stuff by one, moved another away to MN's pet project and once played a home game in bloody Scarborough, FFS (was there a Sedburgh school match too?) and all of it with weakened teams because it was not meant to be an entertaining product that might deflect attention away from the Nonsense....... and all the while the subs reflected none of this

I'm now a little more sanguine about his proposed changes, but only because the new women's cricket will be included in the membership package and will redress some of the imbalance after the match reductions of the last decade. At the same time I am very much aware that this is coming from the man who sold us down the river when it became clear that we might have had a case for some sort of action against the ECB after their hatchet job and he did it because he had his snout firmly fixed on a big job at the ECB trough. Then he had the nerve to call us all a bunch of Luddites, the cheeky b@st@rd.

So I'm not wholly against his proposals, but I wouldn't trust anything... anything at all that comes out of Bostock's mouth

[Durhamfootman]

that might depend on whether Arsenal Liverpool Barcelona Surrey want him

Yes! Just been reading the County preview in The Cricketer magazine- their prediction is a second place finish behind Surrey. That'd be more than acceptable but think it's going to be an unpredictable season, if we can get the first choice team out more often than not then it could be a successful campaign.

slight problem with the cricketer predictions.... they predict that both Derbys and Glammy will finish 7th in div 2. Quite the prediction

[Durhamfootman]

I think that we'd do well to finish in the top 3 or 4

[captaincolly]

I think that we'd do well to finish in the top 3 or 4

So do I. There's another podcast with a preview and they were predicting top 3 and possibly giving Surrey a scare. They said 5th place last year was relatively disappointing given the expectations! I disagree,we maybe should have finished a little higher but I'd have eagerly taken 5th place before the season started. And I think I'd take it again!