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Sods

Leicestershire County Cricket Club

By Sods, in General Football and Sport

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Cake

Cake

Posted
Posted (edited)

Why not give Nick Welch a go for the last 3 games? Done so well. Same with Azad last year seem to be reluctant to give successful 2s players a run. Playing Dexter again? Leaving at the end of the season hardly a unknown talent is he? Why? Just play Welch pay as you play if you want? 

 

Playing for a contract, He may play for nothing

 

 

Answer me this would Nick Welch score less runs in a season than Harry Dearden? 

Edited by Cake
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All foxed out

All foxed out

Posted
Posted
26 minutes ago, Mark 'expert' Lawrenson said:

Why is the club website so slow in showing results? Yes I know the seconds lost last Friday but the county page says the game is entering its final day (Friday) and we’re 0-0 it’s now Monday evening!

the club website is rubbish the only way to keep up to date on firsts and seconds is on live.nvplay.com

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MaidstoneFox

MaidstoneFox

Posted
Posted
3 hours ago, Cake said:

Why not give Nick Welch a go for the last 3 games? Done so well. Same with Azad last year seem to be reluctant to give successful 2s players a run. Playing Dexter again? Leaving at the end of the season hardly a unknown talent is he? Why? Just play Welch pay as you play if you want? 

 

Playing for a contract, He may play for nothing

 

 

Answer me this would Nick Welch score less runs in a season than Harry Dearden? 

I thought he was just trialing with us, so we would have to register him. He's been playing for Surrey 2nds since 2017 as well so who knows what his situation is or what he might be looking for. He's also been playing at Loughborough Uni, so he could have more years of study to go and he is Zimbabwean, so it may be that he is not classed as an English player yet.

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everton carr

everton carr

Posted
Posted
10 hours ago, Cake said:

Why not give Nick Welch a go for the last 3 games? Done so well. Same with Azad last year seem to be reluctant to give successful 2s players a run. Playing Dexter again? Leaving at the end of the season hardly a unknown talent is he? Why? Just play Welch pay as you play if you want? 

 

Playing for a contract, He may play for nothing

 

 

Answer me this would Nick Welch score less runs in a season than Harry Dearden? 

Makes you wonder if Dexter will be leaving most clubs don't play players in September unless they have to if they are about to be released

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Cake

Cake

Posted
Posted
2 hours ago, everton carr said:

Makes you wonder if Dexter will be leaving most clubs don't play players in September unless they have to if they are about to be released

Probably keeping him. Then will be unavailable through April May and June! 

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everton carr

everton carr

Posted
Posted
12 hours ago, Mark 'expert' Lawrenson said:

New lad looks steady 

 

11 hours ago, SemperEadem said:

Yeah done a positive job.

Dug in well I must admit though didn't look  that convincing.Hopefully Phil De Freitas will get the coaching job looks after the under 18s atm.Richard Rae  said on comms Dexter indeed leaving at end of the season

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Guest MattP

Guest MattP

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Posted
1 hour ago, FOXYTALK said:

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/hassan-azad-leicestershire-opener-with-a-desire-to-bat-for-long-periods-jng3dr5wp 

 

Would anyone be able to load the full article?

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Cricket

Hassan Azad, Leicestershire opener with a desire to bat for long periods

With England no nearer to solving their top-order troubles, in the second of a three-part series Elgan Alderman profiles the County Championship openers who are waiting for their chance

The Times, September 10 2019, 12:00pm

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Leicestershire’s players retreated to the dressing room. The 2018 season was in its infancy; the pitch was green and conditions were, well, April in England. The county side were taking on Loughborough MCCU at Grace Road. Student batsmen seldom trouble the professionals but a chemical engineering undergraduate had got under the bowlers’ skin.

“Some of the guys came in and said, ‘God, how frustrating is this bloke — just what is he doing?’ ” Paul Nixon, the Leicestershire head coach, says. “I said, ‘Lads, this bloke, the fact that you’re even talking about it now, he’s done an amazing job. He has frustrated you, he’s seen the new ball off and he’s now starting to get to you. And that’s him doing his job brilliantly.’ ”

Hassan Azad had opened the batting and scored only 48 runs from 144 balls but seeing as Leicestershire’s top order had earlier been reduced to 16 for four, and none of his team-mates passed 30, it was enough to set the ball rolling for a career that Azad doubted would happen.

“He played the ball so late, under his nose,” Nixon says. “He limited his options to get out and he batted three quarters of the day and really frustrated our attack. I watched him from then and we touched base. I kept an eye on him and we signed him when we could.”

Leicestershire welcomed the left-handed batsman, in the final year of his degree, into the fold last winter. The club was in financial difficulty but offered him a summer contract. “He wanted opportunity and it wasn’t about the money,” Nixon says.

Azad, 25, started this season at No 3 in the County Championship. He showed glimpses of obduracy, unbeaten on 46 from 107 balls when Derbyshire bowled Leicestershire out for 120 at the end of May. Then in June, bumped up to open the batting, he scored 137 and 100 not out against Gloucestershire.

A tally of of 961 runs in the championship this season, for the county who are bottom of Division Two, at an average of 56.52 is a competitive return. A statistic where no one beats him, however, at a time when obituaries are being penned for the death of English batsmanship, is the number of balls he has faced: 2,322 (before today’s County Championship matches). Only Dominic Sibley is within 300 of him. Last month Azad was rewarded with a two-year contract.

What has been the cause of this run of form? “It’s really my first season so having the freedom to go out and not have anything on the line, just go out and be myself — I started off with no targets,” Azad says.

“When things are going well, you can almost relax between balls because you’re not worried about anything. I wouldn’t say [it’s] a bubble because a bubble implies you’re not thinking about anything else. [It is] the ability to re-engage after each delivery, to play the ball, think about something else and slip back into gear when the bowler is running in.”

Azad was born in Quetta, Pakistan, the son of Imran, who had a brief first-class career in his home country. In a familiar tale, Imran had his son playing cricket from the moment he would be able to walk to the crease. Azad Jr had talent and, aged 12 and living in Karachi, was playing regularly at a cricket academy.

“I was doing it because my dad wanted me to do it, up until I was about 13 or 14, then I started to really enjoy it,” Azad says. “The cricket in Pakistan is very different: it’s very intense, even at a young age. It wasn’t enjoyable always because there was a lot of pressure to do well and if you didn’t do well, it wasn’t a great environment.”

Just as Azad was starting to enjoy his cricket, there was a change of scene. The family emigrated to England: his mother had a job at a hospital in Mansfield, while his father would run his book-printing business in Karachi from overseas. Their son would attend The Fernwood School in Nottingham, playing club cricket for Underwood and then Plumtree.

“I was playing about six days a week while I was still back in Karachi and that was one of the reasons we came to England, so I could focus on other aspects of my life besides cricket,” Azad says. Cricket remained his primary ambition, though, and Azad relished leaving behind the T20 cricket of Pakistan for something more substantial. “When I came to the UK, I had the freedom to bat for as long as I wanted, which I really enjoyed,” he says.

Azad was on the books of Nottinghamshire until he was 20. “They had to make a decision [whether to keep me], they had a very strong top order and I probably didn’t have enough runs behind me to force my way into the first team,” he says. The rejection compelled him to enrol in higher education, with a cricket career still the aim even if his main route had just been shut off. Over the next three years he would feature regularly for Loughborough and for MCC Universities, along with the odd game for Northamptonshire and Essex second XIs, before Leicestershire saw something they liked.

What changed at Loughborough? “I guess I found my method and that really only happened two, three years ago,” he says. “I stopped trying to do stuff that was outside my limitations. I just got used to absorbing pressure and getting through tough periods. I didn’t feel like I was trying to fit in a box, so I could be as orthodox as I like, I didn’t have to think about technique, I could just think about scoring runs.”

Azad has an intimate, ever-growing knowledge of his game in red-ball cricket: scarce driving against the new ball; happy to leave outside off; a strong cut shot or back-foot drive; and a clip when bowlers stray on to the pads. “When things are happening well, I don’t have to think about where to hit it,” he says. “If the ball’s there, it sort of happens automatically and I don’t have to make a conscious effort.”

He has been honing that knowledge in a first-class career comprising only 21 matches, an average of 51.10 and run rate of just below two and a half an over, with no one-day cricket on his record. Azad is working hard on his white-ball skills: as Steve Smith was building towards an Ashes double-century at Old Trafford last week, Azad was in the nets with Nixon for an hour and a half, working on the short ball, sweeps and reverse-sweeps.

Improving his speed, strength, athleticism and fielding will be key to a successful white-ball transition but those plans are all in hand. Azad will set off for six months of cricket in Auckland this winter with a personal development programme from Leicestershire in his luggage. Before then, the county have three championship games in which to try to climb off the bottom of the table. If anyone is likely to set a foundation for that, it is Azad.

“He’s got a wonderful attitude and desire to bat long periods of time,” Nixon says. “He’s like a modern-day Andy Flower in his approach: he’d be happy to bat all day for his team for 50 not out. For a young man of little experience in the first-class game, he just removes all ego and just does his job.”

“I do have hopes of playing international cricket,” Azad, who is England-qualified, says. “A year and a half ago, I had no hopes of playing professional cricket so I think I’m quite happy with seeing how things turn out. I’ve done most of my learning in England and I feel quite satisfied playing cricket here.”

Whether at the crease or in his new home county of Leicestershire, Azad is in for the long haul.

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Walshy5

Walshy5

Posted
Posted
12 hours ago, MaidstoneFox said:

I've looked at all contract announcements for our squad and this seems to be the situation in terms of when they end:

 

image.png.748c105899d5b9c5798cd40372e3d9b0.png

Of the out of contract list, I'd like to see us keep hold of Swindells. Abbas aswell but I can't see that happening. The rest I'm not bothered.

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Cake

Cake

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Posted

I said last week i would like to see Lilley get a run in the side as the spinner. Parkinson bowling like a drain yet again. You'd say it was the yips but to get the yips you would have to be bowling something like line and length in the first place. 

 

Averages late 40s with the ball. Can't hold up and end either. Awful. 

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Cake

Cake

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Posted
5 hours ago, Walshy5 said:

Of the out of contract list, I'd like to see us keep hold of Swindells. Abbas aswell but I can't see that happening. The rest I'm not bothered.

Swindells obviously Abbas is good. Rest not good enough. No where near really. 

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