Essex v Middlesex MBT 11/8

[MIDDLE EXILE]

Unchanged squad at Chelmers tomorrow, Ishaan Kaushal stands by for his List A debut.

[Jonathan Winsky]

After being scheduled to play just two Metro Bank Cup matches in the 10 days preceding this match and, due to the weather, ending up only playing one match during this time, the matches will come thick and fast for Middlesex, with this scheduled to be the first of six group stage matches in 12 days. Our performances over these 12 days will determine whether we will have at least one knockout match soon after the group stage finishes, or whether we will have time off after the group stage to focus on the return of the County Championship on 4th September.

We could certainly do with winning this match, as we would have a mountain to climb if we end this match with no wins from three matches. Essex will begin this match in a more precarious position than ours, as their first three matches have seen two defeats (including being bowled out for 69 in a 168 run defeat v Nottinghamshire) and one no-result, although a win for Essex would make our position the more precarious of the two teams.

I would have thought that Ishaan Kaushal will be the player to replace Blake Cullen from when we played Hampshire at the Rose Bowl in what seems like ages ago, although if we feel that Josh de Caires, Luke Hollman, Sam Robson and Mark Stoneman do not provide us with enough spin options, maybe Thilan Walallawita will come in.

Essex have named a 15-man squad for this match (https://www.essexcricket.org.uk/2023/08/10/match-previews-essex-v-middlesex-yorkshire-vikings/) consisting of Tom Westley, Ben Allison, Charlie Allison, Aaron Beard, Luc Benkenstein, Will Buttleman, Robin Das, Simon Harmer, Aron Nijjar, Michael Pepper, Jamie Porter, Jamal Richards, Josh Rymell, Noah Thain and Beau Webster.

Pepper played in London Spirit’s first match of The Hundred, but after appearing to have dropped out of their plans for the time being, commonsense has prevailed, as he has been allowed to return to Essex until if London Spirit decide they need him again (https://www.essexcricket.org.uk/2023/08/10/pepper-returns-to-eagles-squad/). It certainly makes more sense for a player to be allowed to play cricket in the Metro Bank Cup instead of carrying drinks or sitting around at The Hundred. However, there is presently little prospect of Middlesex being able to call upon Stevie Eskinazi, Tom Helm or Max Holden in this competition, as I think that they have played in all of their respective teams’ matches at The Hundred so far. If I wasn’t so engrossed in this post (and actually cared about The Hundred), I could have seen Eski and Helm facing each other in an ongoing match.

[Paul W]

I'm fairly certain Ishaan Kaushal hasn't played in a cricket match in over a month. He certainly hasn't played for his club, Richmond, or our second XI in that time, suggesting a niggle of some sort. It hasn't prevented him acting as twelfth man (I'm not sure if he's done any sub fielding, but he has been present doing the fetching and carrying at the drinks intervals in some matches). Of course he will have been practising in the nets and I hope he has a good debut.

Richard Johnson seems to have stopped doing his near weekly (sometimes fortnightly) interviews with Fletch- possibly because the first question he would be asked is, 'Where's Pieter Malan?[

[Sillypoint]

They must've sent Malan home? It's weird.

[MIDDLE EXILE]

He's gone nowhere, it's not weird. He's lost form and confidence and is unworthy of selection at present. I do think it's about time we heard Johno interview Fletch for a change, would be far more enlightening

[adelaide]

I'm starting to think that our overseas players are like Spinal Tap drummers. If they don't find weird and wonderful ways not to be available (Maharaj, Voges...) their form seems to desert them. It's odd because Malan looked solid last year. Perhaps the early season pitches got to him.

[Sillypoint]

Cricinfo has us playing ten and only bowling one end.... Guessing it's Kaushal?

[MIDDLE EXILE]

pre-emptive post removed

[Erskine]

Lost a game we should have won because of poor team selection
If we had chosen Toby or even Tim we would have beaten both Hants and Essex. I fail to understand not picking your best team to win a trophy and now rest of tournament for us has no incentive to watch

[Paul W]

Never in doubt,solid performance,well done to all.

We lost.

The disputed 'Was it a 6, or did Martin Andersson successfully knock it back in to play' (in which case it would only have been one or two) proved to be decisive. If the umpire had seen it differently, we would have won (we seemed to be questioning if the umpire knew the rules).

I think it would be quite easy to develop a dislike of their keeper Buttleman, who despite his protestations failed to convince the umpires to give Stoneman (or was it Robson) out caught behind. I know live stream quality is never as good as Sky, but it looked like it bounced to me (and fortunately the umpires agreed).

[Paul W]

Lost a game we should have won because of poor team selection
If we had chosen Toby or even Tim we would have beaten both Hants and Essex. I fail to understand not picking your best team to win a trophy and now rest of tournament for us has no incentive to watch

We spent last years competition complaining we couldn't pick TRJ because he was at the hundred (he didn't play a single match, so went through all of last August without a game) and now he's available to us, and we could pick him, we don't!

[Jonathan Winsky]

The commentator representing Essex seemed doubtful that Essex could fight their way back into this match. From the point of view of someone who follows Middlesex and knows that we can lose from any position, I could not understand why he had doubts. However, from the point of view that we were 175-1 and all of our top six reached 25, maybe it was understandable. It didn’t help that 236-3 quickly became 257-7, with none of our bottom five threatening to reach 25.

Well done to Mark Stoneman on hitting 93 and to John Simpson on nearly getting us over the line. When Simmo was out, I was hopeful that Ethan Bamber and/or Ishaan Kaushal could have instead been the player(s) to get us over the line, but it wasn’t to be.

About the only element of the post I would have made had we won which I will repeat in this post is that I am not sure what Thilan Walallawita will think about not playing considering the only six wickets we took in the first 46.3 overs of Essex’s innings were taken by our spinners, with Luke Hollman being very economical. The fact that Essex’s spinners were similarly as successful will have rubbed salt into his wounds. I imagine that he would have been confident of taking some wickets had he played.

[MIDDLE EXILE]

Nothing to do with team selection.Tim and Toby are not considered to have the pace and variation to have an impact in this form of the game, and yet another spinner would be overload.The bowlers did well to restrict Essex to below 300 on a small fast scoring ground, especially the spinners who bowled over half the overs and all of whom are more than capable batters.The balance of the side was correct and the choice of Ishaan is to be welcomed as one who needs to encouraged to demonstrate his potential.All of the top-order batters showed a positive attitude and got us into a winning position. Unfortunately a combination of complacency,panic and inexperience by the lower middle order led to our eventual defeat.

[adelaide]

Lost a game we should have won because of poor team selection
If we had chosen Toby or even Tim we would have beaten both Hants and Essex. I fail to understand not picking your best team to win a trophy and now rest of tournament for us has no incentive to watch

It's funny how whoever is not playing would have been our best player if only the selectors knew what they were doing!

Seamers were ineffective and expensive. Tim would have been picked off (and we really have to wean ourselves off him some time). Toby could have brought something more, perhaps. I can only imagine that they want to make sure he is fit for the September CC matches, which are much more important than the One Day Cup. If anything picking Thilan would have improved our chances today. Having said that, the issue here was the hard to believe failure of the middle and lower order batting, not the bowling.

I don't think I've ever seen a bowler alternate between seam and spin in the same over like Webster. I would have thought that it would have disrupted his rhythm. I suppose he won't be around long enough for the penalty points that he should get for dissent to have any impact. Buttleman was pretty disgraceful too on several appeals, not just the non-catch. That looked pretty clear on the replay but it's strange how they managed not to have a side on shot of that.

[MIDDLE EXILE]

Attempting to intimidate inexperienced umpires unfamiliar with the county game is, unfortunately becoming more common. Appealing at every opportunity is designed to wear down officials into making errors, Penalties need to be more stringent against those who resort to gamesmanship and downright cheating. The spirit of cricket is a bit of a myth nowadays.

[Sillypoint]

Thought selection was fine. Not sure Andersson can count as inexperienced anymore. He's batted very high up the order and should do better IMHO. Hollman has played a bunch too now so that was fairly headless. Weirdly enough I think Davies and Hollman should swap positions with Davies keeping things steady as a finisher. I wouldn't pick Thilan. Josh is far better overall cricketer and can hold up an end with finger spin...

[Paul W]

If I've done this right, with a bit of luck this should link to the delivery where Buttleman tried to claim his 'catch[.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NTSTV-lWdHI

It didn't look out at the time, and it doesn't look out now.

Shear gamesmanship, designed to either get it given out, or put doubt in the umpire's mind of, 'Maybe I got that wrong' in the hope the umpire would give the next close decision to even things up.

Time and again on Sky you see keepers 'think' they have caught a catch- only for replays on the big screen to confirm they haven't. With no Sky present the keeper was free to act like 'I caught that'. I don't think this one was even up for debate. It was just a case of Essex needing a wicket and let's see if we can put pressure on the umpires.

Oh- it looks like it won't link to the stream- but it starts at 3 hours 14 minutes 30 seconds for anyone who want's to have another look.

[Sillypoint]

Definitely not out. Clearly bounced up into the top of the glove. The side angle replay is very clear