Durham Match Thread 2025

[Durhamfootman]

need a big reset for next year, I reckon. We've used 25 players this year in the CC..... 25! Too many injuries and an element of scrabbling around trying to find a winning formula. Only 6 of them have played at least 9 of the ten matches, so we are pretty much changing half the team for every game. No chance of a settled side doing that

[Durhamfootman]

oh... and if Alex Lees wins the toss, then somebody needs to tell him to *modded* bat

820 declared

[Durhamfootman]

imagine having to play 'you'll never get us out' Surrey twice during the kookaburra nonsense

[Durhamfootman]

Sibley 'the wall' will be eyeing up 400 to go with his 300 the other week

playing us twice with a kookaburra.... no wonder he's top of the scoring charts. I'll bet he couldn't believe his luck. That's a new 3 year deal right there

[Durhamfootman]

ah well, at least we opted to bat

pity we can't *modded* bat.

I suppose that's the flaw in the plan

As usual we compound matters by losing a wicket with the very last ball before lunch

[Durhamfootman]

I can't help but feel that if Surrey were batting first, they'd be 90-1 at lunch

[captaincolly]

5 down at the close but the current partnership has already done some damage and unless we have a near perfect first session tomorrow the writing will be on the wall - I think it already might be because even a couple of modest partnerships would give them a potentially match winning lead.

[Durhamfootman]

oh dear

[Durhamfootman]

good win for the women in Taunton

pity the men couldn't do the same

Suzie Bates scored more than half of our 315 runs

[Durhamfootman]

oh hello..... and the slide begins. from being 3 down and a small lead we jump to 5 down and a small lead. Night watchman in, who we know can't bat, so I'm not sanguine that we'll survive the final over unscathed... besides, we never do survive final overs of anything unscathed

[captaincolly]

It's as you were saying- the infuriating habit of losing wickets towards the end of sessions. The two tonight will probably have ended any chances of a dramatic comeback.
Women seem to be gaining confidence with every game.

[Durhamfootman]

At Taunton, our spinners were bowling a lot of wides to tempt the batters out of their ground and Bess Heath had their bails off in a flash... stumped off a wide. It looked like a tactic rather fortuitous dismissals off poor bowling

[Durhamfootman]

we're going to be second bottom by tomorrow

[captaincolly]

It's going to be a nervous end to the CC season. Just too many bad sessions have cost us dearly.

[Durhamfootman]

we haven't been smart enough this season. We haven't managed fitness and injuries very well, which is not new and we've recruited overseas players poorly, which is also not new. We haven't been able to properly assimilate the acquisitions we made last year into the side. Getting rid of Borthwick and losing Bedingham for 8 of the 11 matches should have made slotting Gay and Rhodes into the side easy, yet we've made right mess of it and Rhodes is in and out of the side and all over the place in the order when he does play. We've just *modded* it up

We have a new captain who has made some inexplicable decisions at tosses (although the coach will presumably be equally culpable) and we have long periods in the field where we lose control of games and don't seem to know what to do about it

I have an overriding impression which I just can't shake off, that we treat pre-season as a team bonding jolly, rather than an opportunity to get the team match fit and match ready

We have quite a number of outstanding players in our squad, but it doesn't feel to me as though our backroom processes are giving them the chance to thrive. We have at least 4 young players who should develop into really good players, but the injuries have meant that for the 3 bowlers, they either don't play or they all have to play, which just seems like madness to me

Part of me wonders whether too much of our backroom focus has been on trying to get a women's team (which they've managed to do) and a hundred franchise (which they haven't) and the senior team has just been left to muddle along

the only good thing is that our last 2 games of the season are against our relegation rivals, so in theory things ought to be in our own hands, but in practice it would only take a few days of bad weather to screw that up if we have ground to make up on Yorkshire. We face the prospect of perhaps having to go to Chelmsford needing to win.................. so good luck with that