MaidstoneFox

Usual lumbering performance up front for Ghana tonight. Probably should have scored but too slow.

I worked at the merc for a bit and used to see Bill most days. He was actually quite an affable, good-humoured bloke, not the way he came across in his reporting.

I'd be happy with Paul Michael Glaser.

I think they need more than a week off in the early block. There might be an assumption that a few days will be lost to rain, but you can't assume that. There were some very tired performances by the time we got to that last round and it favours counties with bigger squads.

Scheduling is ridiculous. Cram 6 rounds of 4 day games in when the weather was unusually dry, so the players had hardly any breaks. One 20 over game last night and now a whole week before another one.

Was mentioned years ago as an England possibility, but didn't kick on as expected. Would be the third English/Asian heritage player to captain England if that ever happened.

Nice cameo from Ben Mike. It's what his batting role should be, up the order.

That's true with Jack. He has been with Sussex since he was a kid though so hasn't been through Irish age group cricket. Also, I think because he's from Northern Ireland rather than the Republic, he was able to qualify for England or Ireland.

For a small population it has to compete with rugby and football, as well as gaelic sports as well. Though there's some skills crossover with hurling in the same way that many hockey players make good cricketers. Getting test status has been problematic for Ireland, in that while it was something they strived for, they don't get enough matches to give players experience and financially they make a loss (like lots of countries) on the matches themselves, because of the hosting costs involved in setting up stands etc. The hope is that this will change with a new stadium being built in Dublin, by 2028, which will massively reduce their costs for staging games and give them a permanent home. They are also co-hosting the 2030 T20 World Cup, which should generate a lot of interest and income. As a long-time supporter I remember going over to watch associate cricket 20 years ago, against Bermuda and Papua New Guinea, so it is quite a journey to be playing New Zealand now and India in a few weeks. We are missing a few players for this game and have three debutants in the bowling attack, but there's no real expectation of winning the game, it's more about developing players and competing in sessions.

Gaining test status has had its disadvantages and advantages. England can't steal their best players anymore (Ed Joyce and Eoin Morgan) and they are now centrally contracted with a focus on developing for international cricket and being available for it. But on the flip side, they are now counted as overseas players in England, so can't gain quality match experience in the county system, apart from the odd gig that Delaney, Little and Campher have had as overseas players in white ball competitions in England. There's probably 5 or 6 guys who could make a living in county cricket and Adair has improved enormously since he played for Warwickshire as a teenager. He could get into the current Leicestershire bowling line-up! But the depth isn't there and there's a big drop-off in quality.

All a bit odd really and most of them look out of form. On paper, these are stronger teams than we were putting out last season for most Blast games, a lot of which had Matt Salisbury and Roman Walker bowling.

It's certainly not as bad as some cities like Stoke or Bradford and it definitely benefits from having two universities. However, not many graduates hang around as they do in Bristol or Manchester. Much as I have a lot of fondness for Leicester, I felt as I was growing up there, that it was a place I needed to leave.

Kelly is perhaps not the explosive batsman we needed for T20, he is more of a steady accumulator. Seems like a bit of a compromise all forms cricketer. Not really his fault, he's done his job well enough, because you won't win anything if our opening bowling is that shite.

Real battering this. Need to sort out the power plays, both batting and bowling. Hull is starting to look unselectable.

Rather than just pick the 26 most technically talented players, I believe he's picked a tournament squad, where at least half your games might be against less technically able but very physical teams - you are only going to play Spain once if at all. That said, I would have taken TAA, just for his creative abilities to turn games.

O'Reilly can play in midfield, that may be the thinking there.

Squad for tomorrow: Ben Green*, Sol Budinger, Ben Cox +, Josh Davey, Stephen Eskinazi, Alex Green, Ian Holland, Josh Hull, Nick Kelly, Ben Mike, Rishi Patel, Jonny Tattersall, Liam Trevaskis, Ashton Turner.

Should also be penalised for sabotaging our relegation battle by sending us Joe Aribo on loan. He's got to be a double agent.

Very sad. RIP. Tragic the way his life went. I remember he was a whole-hearted tough-tackling midfielder.

I think we should play the whole 2025/26 season again. No relegation or promotion: clearly all results are in doubt due to this spy scandal.

SG Budinger, SS Eskinazi, RK Patel, NF Kelly, OB Cox†, BGF Green*, L Trevaskis, BWM Mike, JH Davey, IG Holland, JO Hull

More of a first team playing in the second game. Kelly is playing, but no A.Patel in either team.

Just a note on that. Ian Holland is in the Washington Freedom squad for MLC: 18th June - 18th July. I don't know how much he is going for, but could miss some championship and blast games.

1st test starts 4th June. Rehan's booked in for drinks duty.

Yep, structure and green shoots are there even if we go down. Handscombe, will be back next season and we just need to keep investing in the younger player, giving them the opportunities to succeed. Hopefully Farooq makes one of the T20 squads.