***Official*** English Domestic Season 2007

[Scaly piscine]

Key and Walker going well for Kent - there's a fair bit of rain around atm though

Must be somewhat of a road for a flat track bully like Key to score a ton on it against Durham's attack.

 

[TT Boy]

Must be somewhat of a road for a flat track bully like Key to score a ton on it against Durham's attack.

Can’t be, Paul Collingwood didn’t score any runs.

 

[Xuhaib]

People who have seen Mansoor Amjad play how would do u rate this guy?

 

[Spitfires_Fan]

Must be somewhat of a road for a flat track bully like Key to score a ton on it against Durham's attack.

If it's a road, why did so many Durham batsmen struggle on it? Take away Di Venuto and Coetzer and you've not got much left.

Durham made 407 on the first day, after winning the toss, in what I'm assuming were better weather conditions, given that there appears to have been more rain and bad light around today. Kent are well set to improve on that total on a pitch that will have deteriorated against an attack featuring two England bowlers, although admittedly not much else.

Could it possibly be that Rob Key is just a class batsman? Surely not...

 

[Scaly piscine]

If it's a road, why did so many Durham batsmen struggle on it? Take away Di Venuto and Coetzer and you've not got much left.

Durham made 407 on the first day, after winning the toss, in what I'm assuming were better weather conditions, given that there appears to have been more rain and bad light around today. Kent are well set to improve on that total on a pitch that will have deteriorated against an attack featuring two England bowlers, although admittedly not much else.

Could it possibly be that Rob Key is just a class batsman? Surely not...

Exactly.

Most of Durham's batting is crap - Colly, Di Venuto and Benkenstein aside, it's the bowling they're known for.

 

[TT Boy]

Gordon Parsons, Vaughn van Jaarsveld's Lions coach is rather 'annoyed' that VB has not informed him of the possibility of signing for Warwickshire and that his not informed Cricket South Africa that he will be going Kolpak. VB, is still 'down' to represent South Africa in Australia in July, yet with the intention of making himself unavailable for South Africa come 2008.

It will be farcical if CSA allows that to happen and rather insulting if VB actually thinks wasting peoples time (and finance) is all right. However, it will be a huge blow if he does go Kolpak, regardless of his less than fantastic average his a real talent and awesome on the eye.

http://content-uk.cricinfo.com/southafrica/content/story/293765.html

 

[Spitfires_Fan]

Exactly.

Most of Durham's batting is crap - Colly, Di Venuto and Benkenstein aside, it's the bowling they're known for.

But a lot of Kent's batting lineup who I rate pretty highly (Denly, Van Jaarsveld, Stevens) didn't get anywhere either. Maybe it's one of those pitches where once you're in, you're in, but I certainly don't think it's anything remotely approaching Taunton-esque.

 

[brockley]

Spot on warwickshire vaughan van jaarsveldt will be a good signing for them.
Expect more kolpak signings next season,especially with only 1 overseas pro.
County cricket is certainly doing its bit to rip out the heart of south african domestic cricket.

 

[Perm]

Do matches against Universities count as First Class?

 

[Magrat Garlick]

Do matches against Universities count as First Class?

Depends on the university. Oxford, Cambridge, Loughborough and Durham have FC status - Cardiff and Bradford/Leeds don't.

 

[Spitfires_Fan]

Some and some - off the top of my head, games against Oxford, Cambridge, Loughborough and Durham (?) are first class. Games against Cardiff UCCE are not, and there are possibly one or two others as well.

 

[Perm]

Thanks guys, so the current Essex game has First Class status but doesn't mean anything in the overal County Championship, is that right?

 

[Spitfires_Fan]

Yep that's right - it's a chance for the players to bolster their FC averages against some weaker opposition, but it won't have any bearing upon their position in the Championship. All of the counties play a game against University opposition at some point during the season when they are the spare team left out of the fixture list for that week.

 

[Perm]

That's cool, thanks for that. Good to see some of the Essex batsman getting some runs under their belt, disappointed that RtD missed out though.

 

[Spitfires_Fan]

Yeah - I think most of the players will be disappointed though as - RTD aside - they've all got starts, and yet no one's gone beyond Bopara's 82

 

[Spitfires_Fan]

Just wondering what people think of the bonus points scoring system at the moment, with up to 5 available for batting and 3 for bowling. Considering that cricket is becoming more and more of a batsman's game and we have roads like Taunton and Chelmsford on the county circuit, I would rather see it revert to 4 points being available for each or - even better - 5 for bowling and 3 for batting.

You could have a point awarded everytime 2 wickets go down, so 2 wkts = 1 point, 4 wkts = 2 points etc, and with batting have 1 point for passing 200, 2 for passing 300 and 3 for passing 40.

What do you think?

 

[Spitfires_Fan]

Kent just about manage to secure all 5 batting points thanks to Tredwell, but it looks like it's been a pretty abject performance this morning from Hall, Arafat and McLaren

Hopefully once Durham are in we'll take some wickets ourselves - it'd be nice to get Di Venuto early on.

Arafat and McLaren to take the new ball for me. Not sure Joseph can be trusted after his performance in the first innings. I'm not sure how fragile his confidence is.

 

[Scaly piscine]

Personally I'd have the batting bonus points reduced to 4, but with you getting a fraction of a point each way along from 201 to 400 or whatever (201 = 0.02 points, 202 = 0.04 and so on). For bowling I'd make it so the points came at 5 wickets down, 7 wickets down and 9 wickets down and also have an additional point for bowling teams out in 100 overs or less.

At the moment it's virtually impossible for sides not to get 1 bowling point without a game being rained off - which makes it kinda daft.

 

[Spitfires_Fan]

I don't know what is up with Kent's bowling attack in this game, they are getting slapped all over the ground.

Di Venuto's a pain in my arse.

 

[jakob1978]

Kent just about manage to secure all 5 batting points thanks to Tredwell, but it looks like it's been a pretty abject performance this morning from Hall, Arafat and McLaren

Hopefully once Durham are in we'll take some wickets ourselves - it'd be nice to get Di Venuto early on.

Well...Durham seem to be racing along at the moment (120/1 after 21.4 overs, run rate 5.53). Di Venuto getting another half century, and Collingwood on 43 from 27 balls, with 6 fours and a six.

I'm a bit disappointed we couldn't get Kent out for a bit less (even one run to deny them their 5th batting point). Good performance from Plunkett getting 5 wickets and Harmy getting 4 though.

SJ Harmison 24.3 3 075 4 3.06 (1w)
LE Plunkett 32.0 5 105 5 3.28 (1nb)