What are we this year?
By Grockle et al
June 8 2016
The massive doom and gloom of the early part of 2016 on this site seems to have dissipated and been replaced with something else....I'm personally not sure what it is. Predictions of relegation almost from day one, complaints about the DoC Matthew Maynard, the debate about who signed and is responsible for anyone who put their name to paper in 2015, the pitch, the spending on Chris Gayle and Mahela Jayawardene, whether Rogers was up to the job...it all poured out. And here we are. But, with all three main competitions started now....where exactly are we?
At the end of last year's season I had a conversation with a poster who wanted to put up a thread, before the 2015 season was over asking how we could avoid relegation in 2016. After some negotiation we managed to change the title to something that was a little more positive and avoided the 'R' word but there was certainly some disgruntled Somerset 'faithful' who were distinctly unimpressed by our get out of jail antics in September 2015 and saw little hope coming this summer.
So here we are, Unbeaten in the CC1. Unlikely to go much further than the league stages in the T20 despite big signings? Squeezing out a last wicket victory against the Bristolians at the start of our 50 over campaign last Sunday and Surrey at the Oval tonight looking for revenge after we gave them the last wicket treatment about a week ago in the four dayer.
So how does that look?
Well the Championship 'unbeaten' tag does probably flatter us ever so slightly. We have drawn a lot with the weather both working for and against us in April and early May. We certainly did not look like much against Durham at the start of the season. There were questions about whether we had really filled our vacant number 3 spot with Chris Rogers who started off a little slow - but is starting to get into his stride a little now. Banger looked in early fine fettle and Tom Abell certainly does not seem to be out of place in an opener's spot. Number 4 seems very safe in the hands of the consistently good James Hildreth (what a shame that double season certainty has come so late in his possible international career) The number 5 spot however was still causing problems as both RvdM, who had probably been brought in with a slight hope that he could make it his own and Jim Allenby, who held it for most of last season and still looked as much at sea in it looked unlikely to change anyone's view of our number 5 weakness. Pete Trego looks like he means business with the bat and our tail is wagging furiously at any offer of a bit of time at the crease. Ryan Davies seems to be a more than competent keeper but an unfinished longer format batsman. This of course means that the 'What we did with Bates' debate is still nice and bubbly.
Bowling wise we looked and felt understrength at the very start partly because of Craig Overton's head fit at the end of 2015 and his brother's injury. Tim Groenewald took up the Alfonso Thomas mantle of experienced seamer and displayed it proudly and Jack Leach started a season only semi injured with a wide open field to show his wares on. Once the Overton's were in we looked like we might have something of an attack with Lewis Gregory starting uninjured as well.
People struggled with the rota system that Matthew Maynard operated from Day 1, partly because rain affected games tended to mean that no bowler was particularly over worked and partly because the bowler who seemed to be in form in one game tended to be the one rested for the next competitive match.... some are still not convinced but with Josh Davey sidelined almost immediately for part of the early season, reserves are few and far between. I suppose the end of the season is the time to review this as a plan. Whether it will have diluted our firepower during a vital time or not is yet to be seen.
Home fixtures brought up the conversation about the pitch once more with 'dig it up' being a popular response, or so it seemed. The long game against Middlesex supposedly showed that no team could win the CC1 if they play at Taunton. The match against Surrey where the heroics of Tim and Jack won us a game we were winning, losing, throwing away and then digging in and grafting for suggested the pitch might not be the major deadweight it seemed.... has the new drainage system made a difference? Is the 'M5 worm' turning? Well Jack Leach is looking like he will take advantage of it if it is.
So our long format has not come unravelled yet. Many who would not be convinced if the Angel Gabrial made himself known to all on live TV and guaranteed the trophy to us are.... wait for it.....unconvinced, We are relegation fodder with an ineffective DoC who only picks his friends and underuses our young talent playing poor cricket on a barely usable road of a home wicket which will constantly frustrate our Championship designs which are underfunded by the club in favour of big star signings for the T20 format which is their only real goal if you look under the surface - I think I got it all.
We do not have the Championship 'stars' of not long ago but they also did not give us the silverware (though one year that was a change in the rules rather than their fault). But we have been favoured this year during a section of the four day series where we pretty regularly underperform. We finished the first half of the CC1 without a loss (something we've rarely managed to get out of April without doing) and ended with a victory - I personally don't think we will be contenders but I would hope we have done enough to welcome CC1 cricket to the County Road for another season at least and there are green shoots rather than just seeds of something better in the future.
I will nail my colours with the 'Doom' crew as far as T20 is concerned. I feel our present lineup is a pretty mediocre unit in the shortest of formats. We have a little short -term international decoration but we are not strong enough for the whole campaign using our present tactics. The moment the "Gayle Force and Jayawardene Show" leave we will see where the 'patches' mentioned in dispatches were.
That is not to say I don't think a change in line up and tactics could not make us more of a force. Our present strategy is out of date and has been found out very quickly by other sides, our present bowling attack is not playing to the requirements of the new T20 animal and our batting does not bat cleverly and relies on the mayhem from Jamaica and the class from Sri Lanka and the hope that the rest can make some kind of a showing that gets us a competitive total. Unfortunately when that happens our bowlers can't defend it effectively at the moment.
We may scrape into the quarters but if we get to the Finals Day it will because of a major re-think or we gave up and let the young players have their head and they save us by being surprisingly good at this stuff at an early age.
It is a little too early in the 50's to make a prediction but if we have any hope anywhere I feel this might be it for this year. The batting has to grow a spine and Yasir Arafat has to get himself into some kind of form with the ball and the bat. RvdM is and will be an asset and I hope to see Josh Davey and especially Adam Hose go forward in their whole career using this format as the stepping stone. We shall see how the Oval goes and have a bit more of an idea then.
Overall - it isn't going to be a golden season. I think the majority would settle for a solid one with something of a showing somewhere. The resetting of the club side from the days of big star 'almost got there' years to a new 'difficult to beat' unit with a few names that might do something in the long run has taken longer than some expected - maybe the moving on of Jos and Nick and the loss of Craig K may have had some effect there who can say.
Somerset is 'in transition' and I think the only thing we can hope for presently is that the transition seems to be moving forward and not in reverse.... though I am sure there are those of the alternative opinion and that is what the section below this is for I suppose.
Good luck to Somerset at the Ovel tonight and enjoy what you see people..... I'm back in 7 days and I certainly will. Ramadam Kareem
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Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2016:06:12:12:51:52 by Grockle.
On another topic, Chris Gayle was interviewed on Today on Tuesday morning and is seemingly utterly unrepentant about the remarks he has made to female journalists. It would, at least, be something if he could distinguish between remarks made in private and those made in the hearing of tens of thousands, but that apparently is quite beyond his egocentric view of the world.
LoL
Seventy-eight Seasons a Somerset Supporter
Inconsistent.
CC? People can talk about our unbeaten record as much as they like, to glorify Somerset's magnificence in the CC but it conveniently ignores the reality of performance on the pitch.
We could easily have lost two of our first three games but for weather. The single game that we have won, was a poor performance rescued by an incredible and highly unlikely last wicket stand and the margin of victory couldn't have been slimmer. An upturn in form with strong performances against Warks and Yorks feel like lost opportunities as at the key moments Somerset went flat.
We are a team of round pegs in square holes. We have a large group of ageing batsmen but we refuse to give long-term alternative homegrown options an opportunity. Hose. Second team guys. Its not just this season its the future. One of these days we're gonna have a whole bunch of guys making their debuts simultaneously because we didn't take the chance earlier. We rest in-form bowlers because the poor little lambs are so horribly overworked. Does this effect our/their ability to then be consistent and develop rhythm? I remember Caddick used to talk about how he liked to bowl long spells to find form. These days it feels like we're afraid of breaking our cricketers somehow.
I wish no ill to any of the wicket keeping options. But we have had virtually zero run production from the position this year and that doesn't help.
Top 4 are fine, though it still annoys me when Hildreth scores big tons on easy pitches but when asked to tough it out just gets out feebly. Abell needs some confidence runs. Trego has been excelling in a position which is too high for him. This fact is a credit to him but doesn't make him a number 5. I wonder if his lack of bowling is to help him focus on this? If so it has worked and seemingly we have no lack of options to bowl. The 6 is a big issue obviously. We have too many all rounders who are ok at both but not especially good at either batting or bowling.
Jamie Overton has been the biggest plus for me this year. His brother has conspicuously not lived up to his efforts of last year. Leach has been good too.
One day stuff? Seemingly good performances bring skin-of-teeth victories or close losses, and bad performances thrashings. The tie with Essex being a classic example. Essex are a good young team but very few teams apart from us could give that away. Somerset love to bowl out their worst bowlers (economy-wise) first and leave those with the best figures till last-sometimes not utilising all their best bowlers overs. SO when Foster came in we brought on wicketless and expensive COverton and gave Mr Foster some sighters. Weird. In most games our extras conceded exceed the opponents. I follow short format in hope rather than expectation which is a big change from recent years.
Strong CC performances vs Warks and Yorkshire but patchy/average in the other games, IMO.
T20 we look below average to me. 50 over has been so heavily curtailed by rain that it's hard to say.
For me the biggest plus this season, in a surprise/good way has been TG across the formats.
Jack's form has been very pleasing in the CC, as has Pete's batting form. Jamie O seems to be coming along in the CC.
Most of the others not named above need to step things up somewhat when the CC resumes, IMO.
Hildreth has scored a bucket load of runs, including getting us out of a potential last day disaster at Lord's. If that isn't 'touching it out', I don't know what is.
I agree re the shortfalls of the rotation policy though, and consistency remains a problem, as does our perennial inability to start the season strongly.
That said, the progress of Jove, Jack Leach has been very encouraging.
I think our 50 over results likely flatter us a little.
Grizzzly
