First Q&A...seems appropriate

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Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2016:05:23:05:04:23 by Grockle.

ON the left-armer front:

For some reason we are still persisting with this Gentleman by the name of Tom Barber even though, from what I have heard, is radar is extremely unreliable. A report from Stockwood Keith on the club cricket thread even implied that Barber has sprayed it around even in club cricket, bowling numerous wides.

Left-armers are, surely, not so rare a breed that Tom Barber is the only possible option?

When I say persisting with him, I note that he was in the party for the T20s vs Worcs yesterday.

Josh Davey remains absent from Somerset Second XI cricket. Bagpuss pointed me in the direction of a report which indicated he had batted well in club cricket but given that (so far as I know) Josh is on a full contract with SCCC then his absence from the Second XI presumably indicates that he is suffering from some type of injury at present - possibly one which prevents him bowling rather than batting.

I was pleased to see that Bobby Gamble seems to be involved again with the Seconds. He seemed to do rather well last season and given the fact that we are not exactly awash with numbers on the bowling front, I'm a little surprised that he wasn't taken on - I think he has finished University etc now.

Bobby Gamble is certainly still at university, he has been taking wickets for Loughborough. Might be wrong but I think he still has another year to go, too.

Well hopefully we might take him on soon, then.

It is today and not tomorrow and it's with Guy Lavender and Matthew Maynard. Other than that.....
Because there are not many still on the ground because of the weather I wonder if it will go ahead.

Is it / did it go ahead?

I left at 3.30pm and the crowd had already thinned out.
Given it was due to take place 30 mins after the close of play I guess it should be starting right now!?!?

AGod, Josh Davey has been acting 12th Man for last two days.

Thank you, Roger.

Thanks CH. I did see someone had said tonight but I thought it would be at the end of the game so assumed they were a day out. Seems I was.

Funny. I thought one of the commentators mentioned Chris planning to be there so I just went with them. Not sure what Guy was going to offer but I suppose there might have been some non cricket aspects.

Ahh well.....

Q&A went ahead - GL and MM small group maybe 40 or so there, I'll do some notes in the morning. Interesting.

Thanks Bagpuss. I'm sure it was and I'm also sure anything you can tell us will be lapped up and analysed to death so can you add body posture and mannerisms as things were discussed so we can really hypothesise about the meaning of every syllable please? Who did the speaker glance at, how nervous were they etc etc,

Bagpuss can you also confirm if there was any rotation, in questions asked, positions taken up in the room, seats used etc. Thanks

Yeah, the first one was funny.

The second?

Alas, poor Nailsea.

Under those circumstances, I think the only fair thing to do is take a question from the left hand side of the room, followed by one from the right, then one from the front, followed by one from the back.

A bit like Countdown really.

I'll have two from the top, and four from anywhere else.

TiC of course AG. It will be interesting.

So, anyone know what was said at the meeting ?

Particularly interested in MM's 'rotation' philosophy & how that may develop over the season.

Grizzzly

I cannot imagine that he will very It Given that It has occurred before anyone has sustained a heavy workload. I.e no logical reason to apply It pre heavy workload And then dispose of It once people are having to bowl a lot. So, logically, It will persist unless weather gets even worse And our guys have even less bowling to do.

AGod- It seems fairly obvious to me that if you are going to have a rotation policy you need to start rotating before you have to.

Otherwise you end up by match 7 with four front line bowlers all equally exhausted. Therefore a wise man would start rotating before he has no choice.

That wasn't really my point. My point was I would not expect the policy to suddenly be shelved.

Of course the idea is to rotate before people are exhausted. I think the point many have made is that the workload for all of our guys, thus far, has been very light ergo we have been over cautious with the policy thus far.

It's Jamie Overton's 'turn,' to rest vs your boys next weekend and I personally believe that this will be the first time this season that the decision to rest will represent a prudent move rather than an overly cautious one. It sounded like Jamie bowled his heart out today at express pace and on a Wednesday. Most previous games this season SCCC have finished their bowling by Monday or occasionally Tuesday. If you've finished your bowling on Monday, then you have five full days between games. Finish on a Wed and it's only three days.

Only about 40 people remained behind for the members' Q&A session on Tuesday - I suspect the rain delay at tea had pesuaded quite a few people there would be no further play in the day and they'd left. However there were some good questions and honest answers from both Guy Lavender and Matt Maynard, I felt the smaller number leant to a less adversarial atmosphere.

First question was about the Taunton pitches - we know that up to a point we have to deal with the itches we have got, but are there any plans to try to do something to make life a little easier for the bowlers (and more entertaining for the audience)

Sme points from the reply from Matt that I found interesting - the ECB have changed their regulations for pitch preparation which means groundstaff can do stuff which may help the pitch to deteriorate more during the match (all in the cause of getting pitches to encourage spinners in the latter stages of the match). The pitches across the Taunton square do vary, with the ones towards the West (flats) side in particular tending to remain very flat throughout the four days of a match.

By drilling holes into the pitches and filling them with sand, then covering with grass, they hope to disrupt the surface a little resulting in a bit of crumbling later in the matches. But this is a bit trial and error (the pitch used for the Yorkshire match had had this treatment) they dont want to do too much too soon as if they end up with a pitch that rags square on day one they could be in trouble with the pitch police.

The most surprising thing to me was that there are very few pitches on the square that have ever been relaid. This is an option I think they will be cnsidering in the future. However once a pitch has been relaid it will be a couple of years before it can be used for matches. Next year the ground will be hosting additional matches with the international T20 and the Women's World Cup matches in addition to the Somerset season, so there will be pressure on the pitches available particularly those towards the centre of the square which are suitable for TV cameras. I got the impression that relaying pitches is certainly something they will be considering after this though, in the meantime they may experiment with different varieties of grass, and leave the grass loner on the pitches (apparently the grass was left quite long ar 12mm for the Yorkshire match).

A question about what Matt, and other coaches/players he hass spoken too, thinks about the new toss regulations. Generally the feeling seems to be it is a Good Thing as far as it has worked this year. Another question on his view of the change in Championship structure with the 8/10 1st/2nd division split from next season - again he thinks it will be a good thing, not so much for the loss of a couple of matches but also because scheduling is much easier when you have an even number of teams in a league; you dont have to allow for one team to be sitting out every round of matches (tbh I'll wait and see on this point, I still haive faith in the ECB's ability to create completely illogical playing/travelling combos!)

Bowler rotation. They have made no secret of the fact they are rotating the bowler's schedule and there are no plands to change this. There is good evidence (I got the impression this evidence was from cricket in general and possibly sport in general rather than just at Somerset) that injuries are far less likely to happen if players are rotated like this. (Personally I think the policy is absolutely correct as it applied at the moment but won't go into personal arguments on this post).Matt also praised the bowlers for how well they had performed in this match, a comment which was met with wholehearted agreement.

Matt did mention that Josh Davey had suffered a bruised heel (hence his absence from the 2nds) but had had a cortisone injection and had played in the most recent T20 seconds match (I havent checked to see if he bowled). Guy Lavender chipped in to say he was aware that there was poor communication between the club and members/supporters about injury issues within the squad and they were hoping to rectify this with more information on the website (I think this is an excellent idea; it has seemed to me to be rather a wall of silence on this for far too long, and even if we hear initially of injuries there never seems to be any follow up on how recovery is going)



A couple of questions more to Guy Lavender. Firstly on the schedule for planned further development of the ground. The old big scoreboard is going and will be replaced by a smaller, more simple scoreboard. The old stand in front of it will come down and a smallish stand will replace it with 'concessions' (bar/food outlets) built into the back of it (obviously we'll lose the bacon butty bar when the old scoreboard goes). This stand will be designed so larger temporary stands can be assembled around and behing it to increase capacity when needed.

The floodlights have planning approval and will probably go up in the off season 2017/18. However I get the impression the finances are not all in place for this yet (personal opinion - I'm glad they aren't rushing to get it done quickly if this puts the club finances at risk. We don't want to end up in Durham's position)

Another question was about the selling and allocation of membership for the 1875 club (the new special membership lounge/balcony in the Somerset Pavilion). this was never really offered to all members to join. Guy was quite honest about this; initially they offered it to then current Long Room members to upgrade, and to "commercial partners". The plan was always then to open it up to all members to apply. He said they were genuinely surprised at the popularity and uptake by those initial groups which meant the allocation was fully taken (and I think even had a waiting list) before the bulk of the members had a look-in. He seemed a little embarrassed by this and really could only comment that it proved the popularity of this more exclusive membership option.

The Women's Cricket Super League (I'll try to do a post more about this in the next few days Grockle promise!). A decision has been made about ticketing for Somerset members, who will be allowed in free to the two Western Storm home games at Taunton this year. This may change in future seasons - as Guy quite rightly says, giving away something for free doess tend to make people think the product isn't worth anything, but the aim this year is to get as many people there and watching.

They are analysing membership across the board and they may change the range of available packages in the future. This comes after their selling out Platinum membership this year for the first time. Interestingly he said it was the Platinum membership category that is increasing in popularity year-on-year; Championship membership numbers have remained static for about the last 6 years. Championship members will have to pay for tickets for the tourist match v Pakistan this summer (£20 for each of day 1 and 2, £10 day 3) but once in the ground their Championship membership will allow them access to members' facilities (I remember this being an issue last year).

I think that is the main bulk of the questions and comments. I'm sure there were others hopefully if there's anything important someone else who was there will add it to the thread.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2016:05:30:09:41:25 by Bagpuss.

Thanks Bagpuss

Quote:

Bagpuss
... we know that up to a point we have to deal with the itches we have got...

Sadly, we certainly do.

Many thanks Bagpuss for that very full and informative report.

Yes, thank you for that Miss Bagpuss.

Matthew Maynard can certainly talk a good game, if nothing else.

"Sme points from the reply from Matt that I found interesting - the ECB have changed their regulations for pitch preparation which means groundstaff can do stuff which may help the pitch to deteriorate more during the match (all in the cause of getting pitches to encourage spinners in the latter stages of the match). The pitches across the Taunton square do vary, with the ones towards the West (flats) side in particular tending to remain very flat throughout the four days of a match. "

This is massively welcome news. Two reasons:

a) It's the right thing for the game, IMO.

b) More parochially, with Jack and VDM we are probably quite well served in the spin department relative to many other CC1 teams, IMO.

Question: Was the pitch for the Yorks game near the flats? What about the one for the Lancs game?

(Matt did say what they were planning with the grass for the next match but I won't tell you cos, you know, Surrey spies...!!)


Quite right, Bagpuss.

Although with an injury-riddled attack I think even the Brown Caps can probably work it out for themselves:

Plenty of grass will be left on and even though we will have to bat first, we are backing our top four plus Trego to get a good total vs a weakened attack.

"Matt did mention that Josh Davey had suffered a bruised heel (hence his absence from the 2nds) but had had a cortisone injection and had played in the most recent T20 seconds match (I havent checked to see if he bowled). Guy Lavender chipped in to say he was aware that there was poor communication between the club and members/supporters about injury issues within the squad and they were hoping to rectify this with more information on the website (I think this is an excellent idea; it has seemed to me to be rather a wall of silence on this for far too long, and even if we hear initially of injuries there never seems to be any follow up on how recovery is going)"

Hear hear.

The pitch for the Yorkshire match was on the west side of the middle - certainly not as far over as some we use (no Yorkshire supporter could accuse us, as they have in the past, of it being a "Trego-friendly" pitch). The Lancashire pitch was closer to the flats than this one.

Thanks, Bagpuss.

Was kind of hoping that both had been over there by the flats as might imply more chance of a non-draw result in games to come. Still, I'm really encouraged by the fact that we now have more license to try to make our pitches turn.

One thing I didn't mention above but should have done is Matt reiterating how hard Simon and the ground staff work to try to produce the best pitches possible for the county - last year they won the award for the best limited-overs pitches and were runner-up in the championship pitches category.

Yes, I'm sure all 18 County Groundsmen and all 18 Grounstaffs work very hard and deserve all of our thanks.

As the ECB rightly point out, the results of the pitch marking system are a reflection of the quality of the pitches but not necessarily of the quality of the work that went into preparing them (as things like soil types, weather, drainage etc will all have an impact). It may well be the case that all 18 Head Groundsmen have a similar level of ability, knowledge and work equally hard.

Re: the rotation policy.

There was a piece in the Cricket Paper a couple of weeks ago by the physio at Derbyshire. He was talking about x or y player that had, like LG and CO, suffered a stress fracture in the past. What he said was that the evidence says that it is not the volume of work, per se, that is the chief cause of this type of injury. Rather, it is, apparently, "sudden spikes in workload," that are chiefly to blame. This implies that, at least in the context of this type of injury it is necessary to ensure that a young bowler's work-load increases only incrementally from one season to another....

... one implication of that might be that, because we operated this policy last season that, at least in respect of LG and CO, we might almost be compelled to operate it again this season i.e. to avoid the workload of the bowlers suddenly being a lot more than it was last season.

However, we will surely want to either gradually increase the amount of bowling that LG and CO can actually do in a given season OR we will need to recruit some extra pace bowlers to the club to cope with such injuries as do occur.

I think it also remains true that, due chiefly to the weather, workloads were very light across the first few games of this season.

Workloads are not only the overs the bowlers send down on the pitch, there is also that in te nets, and other physical work and training between matches. I would think that the rotation policy also schedules changes in the players out-of-match train ing schedule as well.

Last year the only bowler injury that occurred during the season that resulted in a long lay off, that sticks in the mind, was that to Jack, which was a concussive injury and completely non-cricket related. I reckon there were few oter counties who could boast that. With other formats starting - and the increased travelling that will involve - it is even more important to manage the workloads to reduce the risk of injury. Particulary with young bowlers who, keen to impress (and keep their position in the pecking order) may be less likely/able to listen to their bodies when they are getting a bit tired at the end of a ong day in the field.

Yes but unless we ramped up the volume of netting etc to compensate for all the rain in the actual matches then lighter than anticipated workload in matches + standard/normal workload in nets etc will still have equalled a lower than anticipated/typical overall workload. If we're trying to keep folks as fresh as possible we may not have ramped up the non-match work for the bowlers to compensate for little match bowling.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2016:05:19:12:01:21 by AG on apple.

Thanks for the update Baggy, some very interesting points there. 👍

Yes, many thanks Baggy.

I'm not entirely clear how the rotation system is intended to work ? Bowlers A,B,C,D, all take it in turns to miss a match ? Or, more logically, this is determined according to likely pitch conditions/weather/form etc ?

If someone has a drain of a game or two, it makes no sense to include them just because it's someone else's turn to miss a game surely ?

Grizzzly

Grizzly- That's the thing. In reality, if you have four bowlers there is every chance that at any given point in time someone will be injured, not in best form, on Lions duty, etc, which means 'rotation' more or less takes care of itself. You need the 5th bowler to be every bit as good as the four who start the first match of the season, or you are weakening the side.

I think it's very much that they take it in turns, Grizzly. That's how it's gone this season so far anyway.

Realistically, with Alf's retirement we are a proven seamer light, numbers wise.

The cover for the four (from whom we are perming three for each game) is Josh Davey and Ben Green. Josh currently has a heel injury of some sort.

Makes sense Chunky.

I get the rotation theory AG. The point I am making however, is that if e.g. Lewis plays way below par for a couple of games, it would surely make no sense to play him in the next game just because it is not yet his 'turn' to rest ?

Seems to me that rotation only makes sense if all bowlers involved are equally fit and performing at least on a par to their abilities.

If not, they should surely be dropped, or invited to bring their next 'rest' game forward !?

Grizzzly

Yes, I agree with you.

But I am not convinced that that is what will happen.

We've not adjusted the policy despite light bowling work-loads so I am not at all sure that we will adjust in light of things like current form.

Anyway, let's hope that the guys continue to bowl as well as they have in the last two matches, in which case we shall have no problems.

A question was also asked about Arafat's availability. Maynard said he would play in T20s and some not all of the 50 over games as younger bowlers both Overton's, Gregory and Davey will play in the 50 over comp given how well they performed in last season's competition (second half of group stage games). He said younger bowlers will learn from Arafat in respect of bowling at death who will pass on his experience.

Maynard also praised captaincy of Rogers during Yorkshire game regarding fields he set on a very flat pitch. Gave an example of Lees wicket in 1st innings where he kept 3rd slip in when Yorkshire only kept 2 slips in for most of our innings. Also said that Rogers got the balance between attacking and defending in keeping scoring rate down right during Yorkshire 1st innings.

Thanks for that addition Cleavo... he does seem to be in control on the field of play though in a little less obvious way than our Aussie captains in the past

And that is based on what Grockle?

A glass half - empty or a glass half - full?
Regardless, both glasses need filling up.

Nothing but what I've read here and elsewhere Tom. What else can I base it on? I haven't been there. Though others who contribute here have been. I'm quite impressed by his no nonesense start.

I bet you aren't so please add your sixpenneth if you want to and I'll reserve the right to change my shakey opinion if your info sways me another way.

I will however, before you reply, refer you to the word 'seems'.

Note I did not post 'has'. Subjective you see...based only on what I can get hold of and accepting others may disagree and only my personal opinion.

Hope that answers your question sir.

Well, you bet wrongly.

Having seen him in action during a couple of games, I am very impressed by his no nonsense start.

Long may it continue. Taking the captaincy away (voluntary or otherwise) from Marcus Trescothick was the best thing that happened last winter.

A glass half - empty or a glass half - full?
Regardless, both glasses need filling up.

Excellent Tom. I know you have seen some of the action so thanks for some confirmation of what 'seems'. I look forward to seeing the man but I won't have much opportunity between the middle of June and the middle of August.

How daft is that?

Very.

As for Mr Rogers - there seems no doubt that the attack has been excellent in the last couple of games and they also, seemingly, did a very good job in the Surrey second innings at the Oval (and would have had Surrey out for far, far fewer runs in their first knock, had the catching been up to snuff).

Any Captain is only as good as his attack. It's always debatable as to how much the causality can really flow the other way - i.e. Captain causes his attack to bowl well rather than good bowling causes Captain to look good.

We must remember that there were numerous days and matches in which the attack also bowled well under Trescothick.

If the bowling attack maintains a consistently higher standard than they did under Tresco, then we can start to look for an explanation along the lines of "It was the change of Captain wot did it," although - even then - if the improvement comes mainly from somebody like Jamie Overton then that is something that might have come with increasing age/experience anyway.

Very fair AG. I can't say I ever saw Marcus as a master tactician but as the senior professional at the club and a man much respected by his team mates he was the only realistic skipper for a number of years.

He achieved more than some give him credit for as club captain and although I would agree he was probably too close to the men he led at times and also too stubborn to allow the best to happen at others, we could have done considerably worse.

The fact that he took the job on and stayed with it until we could replace him is to his credit and it seems to have been done at a cost to his form. I would imagine he was very glad to hand it over to someone else and I very much doubt he was hanging on to it until it was snatched from his 'cold dead hand'.

The only debate really is whether we can keep Rogers if he does come good and if we can't who takes us forward into 2017





Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2016:05:20:12:11:04 by Grockle.

Yeah, there's still the issue of any kind of internal succession, isn't there?

Ok - because of all the collapses last season SCCC would probably have opted for an overseas batsman - and very possibly Chris Rogers himself - even if we didn't feel that we needed to go outside the club for a new leader.

But, in other circumstances, it would have been more useful if an internal guy could have become Captain as that would have given us more flexibility in terms of whom we signed as our overseas pro or pros (if more than one to cover the 16 game season).

I think we can now assume, with a fairly high level of certainty, than any internal candidate beyond a certain age is no longer a candidate to lead SCCC. So the chance seems to have passed the likes of James Hildreth and Peter Trego by.

IN an ideal world:

a) Things work out for SCCC this season and Chris Rogers is deemed to be an important part of that.

b) Chris decides he'd like at least one more year as leader.

and

either

c) One of our younger players starts really be seen as Skipper material and can take over in 2018.

OR

d) The club makes an exciting domestic capture in the winter of 2017 with the new man coming on the understanding that he would succeed CR.

If Rogers stays next year (or even if he doesn't), I could see Hildreth being captain and playing on for five years or so.

It's not that I think JH is about to retire in the next few years. It's that, IMO, the club do not really seem to "fancy," him for the role.... e.g. passed over for Rogers this time, passed over for Jim Allenby in white ball cricket (it's not really the case that James isn't good enough to make the team in white ball cricket).



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2016:05:20:14:10:24 by AG on apple.

I agree AG, tho I still think it's possible - not sure he'd be my first choice, esp if those closer to him seem reluctant, but wouldn't be a total shock to me.

I cannot see any reason to make Hildreath our captain. A lovely bloke he may be but what attributes does he show to consider him for captain? And hasn't he said more than once that he has no interest in captaincy? Trego maybe, but he has been passed-over it seems. We will probably need to import captains until we have some in-house steely character with the right personality.

No. I think what JH said was that he did not want to be on field Captain without also being Club Captain (which was the situation that he was briefly in when Tres was injured.)

Because of CK's loss we haven't someone in the late 20's age group. Those who might be of an age have been passed over before and we probably have a short format captain anyway.
A CC captain then may be a way off if it isn't Chris or bought in. James may well be interim again. Pete may not be an obvious choice for long format captain. Tom in the long run perhaps?

AGod, not sure James said that, more assumed by some on here I think you will find.