**Official** County Cricket 2016

[theegyptian]

Abell the new somerset 4 day captain. Good to see a young English player getting the captaincy. Somerset Announce 2017 Captains - News - Somerset County Cricket Club

Ballance got the Yorkkshire captaincy last week too.

The Giles Lancashire/Warwickshire love triangle still yet to be resolved it seems.

England u19s go to India in the new year but judging by the injury reports continously coming out of their current training camp it'll be a surprise if they have any bowlers left.

Alviro Peterson with a two year ban. Leaves Lancs short on the batting. Hameed at least will play a decent amount. Looking at the fixtures he should still play as many as 10 out of 14 Championship games with Lancs. Same for the likes of Cook, Jennings. Broad and Anderson might even get 6 or 7 games in. Finn should be around for the season for Middlesex realistically. Add in the guys like Bell and Trott and there should be a decent amount of talent on show in 4 day cricket.

 

[S.Kennedy]

I think Yorkshire will slump next season, with the loss of Dizzy and the resulting repercussions.

 

[theegyptian]

Who do you fancy for the championship?

 

[S.Kennedy]

Who do you fancy for the championship?

Whenever somebody asks that, I always say Warwickshire and always look silly! Warwickshire should be playing better than they actually are.

You have to think Surrey will have a good go, the amount of money they have floating around.

 

[Jarquis]

Seems like Somerset have a little more faith in Abell than I do.

The way Leach has been thrown under the bus so the selectors can save their own skin as to why they didn't pick him has been a disgrace

 

[fredfertang]

I think Yorkshire will slump next season, with the loss of Dizzy and the resulting repercussions.

Not before time if they do, but I can't see it myself - the glorious summer of '83 a long way distant now

 

[fredfertang]

The way Leach has been thrown under the bus so the selectors can save their own skin as to why they didn't pick him has been a disgrace

It certainly has - the lad should sue for defamation

 

[grecian]

pathetic stuff about the Taunton pitch obviously, **** me for decades we've been slated for having a dead pitch, we try to change it up by making it spinner friendly, which can't actually hurt England as let's face it this Winter has proven that plenty of them can't play on pitches that turn. It'll continue if we get this constant whining about any pitch that turns a bit because county batsmen can't hack it, diddums.

 

[Furball]

How does Northamptonshire count as North?

Clue's in the name really

 

[Furball]

pathetic stuff about the Taunton pitch obviously, **** me for decades we've been slated for having a dead pitch, we try to change it up by making it spinner friendly, which can't actually hurt England as let's face it this Winter has proven that plenty of them can't play on pitches that turn. It'll continue if we get this constant whining about any pitch that turns a bit because county batsmen can't hack it, diddums.

Ach it's the usual nonsense where spin friendly pitches aren't fair but a green wicket where the ball seams miles or a runway where 600 is below par are both totally fine.

 

[S.Kennedy]

Spin friendly? It was a minefield!! Literally no batsman could get set. As I said Middlesex dumped their bags on it because they thought it was a training wicket, it was that deplorable.

 

[S.Kennedy]

Aaron Finch returns to money bags for the Blast.

 

[SeamUp]

Yorkshire fast bowler Matthew Fisher is set to make his comeback after an injury-plagued year having been named captain of England Under-19s for their tour of India. England will be led by Fisher in five one-dayers in January and February, followed by two four-day matches when Middlesex's Max Holden will take charge.

Fisher first played for England U-19s as a 15-year-old in 2013, having become the youngest post-war cricketer when selected for Yorkshire in a 40-over match the same summer. His Championship debut came two years later but he did not manage a first-team appearance in 2016 after suffering a hamstring problem early in the season.

The England squad contains 10 uncapped players, four of whom were not involved in the Young Lions December training camp in Dubai: Nottinghamshire's Liam Patterson-White and Somerset's Louie Shaw, who are both left-arm spinners, and seamers Henry Brookes of Warwickshire, and Jack Bruce of Middlesex. Six players - Amar Virdi, George Scrimshaw, Ed Barnes, Josh Coughlin, Ben Green and George Panayi - have been ruled out by injury.

Among the new faces is Sussex's left-arm spinning allrounder Delray Rawlins, who was born in Bermuda but qualifies for England on residency. Rawlins made his Bermuda debut at the age of 15, playing in ICC WCL Division Three in 2013.

England Under-19s squad: Matthew Fisher (one-day capt), Max Holden (four-day capt), Harry Brook, George Bartlett, Euan Woods, Will Jacks, Delray Rawlins, Ollie Pope, Tom Banton, Liam Patterson-White, Louie Shaw, Aaron Beard, Jack Blatherwick, Henry Brookes, Jack Bruce

 

[wpdavid]

Ach it's the usual nonsense where spin friendly pitches aren't fair but a green wicket where the ball seams miles or a runway where 600 is below par are both totally fine.

They should have been given bonus points imo for actually encouraging spin bowling in the CC. Not to mention producing more entertaining matches.

I remember my boys getting similar whinges when the groundsman at the Oval had the temerity to produce wickets that took spin from Saqlain and Salisbury during our golden age in the late 1990's and early 2000's.

As for the 'minefields', some of us are old enough to remember the days of uncovered wickets when those sort of scores weren't so exceptional. tbh, today's generation have no clue what a proper minefield looks like anyway. It just seems to be a handy term to justify not being able to amass 400+ without breaking into a sweat.

 

[Spikey]

reckon somerset should produce nothing but sticky wickets next season

 

[Scaly piscine]

I think it's hard to judge a spinning wicket because clearly most English players can't bat on anything that spins. A 200 pitch may in actuality be a 300 pitch. So you can't really judge off scorecards, which is essentially what most people will do.

 

[wpdavid]

I think it's hard to judge a spinning wicket because clearly most English players can't bat on anything that spins. A 200 pitch may in actuality be a 300 pitch. So you can't really judge off scorecards, which is essentially what most people will do.

Spot on actually.

 

[BoyBrumby]

The way Leach has been thrown under the bus so the selectors can save their own skin as to why they didn't pick him has been a disgrace

It certainly has - the lad should sue for defamation

Yeah, very grubby behaviour. Hand on heart I've never seen the boy bowl, but if his action is so rank it asks the question why he's in the Loins squad? Does the selectors' self appointed remit of guardians of the rectitude of SLA not extend (ha) to the development squad?

 

[grecian]

Yeah, very grubby behaviour. Hand on heart I've never seen the boy bowl, but if his action is so rank it asks the question why he's in the Loins squad? Does the selectors' self appointed remit of guardians of the rectitude of SLA not extend (ha) to the development squad?

This is going to sound a tad odd coming from me, but hey actually of they did feel there was some problems with the action, then the development squad would be the place to go. I've not seen him enough to really judge his action, what I've seen looks okay. Yet he has suddenly started taken loads of wickets and it now makes you wonder what Chris Rogers was saying about him not being ready may have been an action problem.

yet yeah,the way it's being handled is stinking, and looks like they're pushing it now to excuse the reasons for picking any other spinner in their squads. Mind you Rayner also missed out for some reason.

 

[wpdavid]

Vic Marks wrote a piece the other day saying how he'd watched Leach loads of times and never spotted anything wrong. Now I know that Marks plied his trade at Somerset, but he's never struck me as being narrowly parochial at all, so his view carries some weight imo. And I think we'd have heard before now anyway if there had been grumbles on the county circuit.