Surrey 2.30pm start

[DT]

As for Zampa/Zamora I don’t know why my spell checker did that. What a mistakea to makea!

😂

[ytsejam]

Well, "no change" Essex have certainly lived up to their name by rewarding the continually failing squad of 13 with yet another chance at Glamorgan tomorrow! !!.....Guess the cupboard must be totally empty then when it comes to any alternatives worth giving a chance!
Having said that, the law of averages says that we must win a match again soon and i reckon we will win this meaningless one.

The batting has been the major problem.  Even if it's been forced with the Westley and Lawrence injuries they have brought in Walter, Pepper and Zaidi over the last week.  Who else is there to bring in?  Patel is he a T20 player?  Taylor only just back from injury  The balance of the side looked a bit better yesterday with atleast batting up until 7 this time.  If you put Coles for Harmer from yesterday you do have a better balanced side.  You'd hope then the top order can take a few more risks and we can be a bit smarter with the batting order as well.

The bowling has been pretty rubbish too (with the odd exception on occasions) . As i said the cupboard must be empty if there are no alternatives to the same old failing 13 again. Would have thought that although no specialist T20 player, Browne would have been worth a go at least by now (when you consider how crap our batting has been ) likewise Fossie. Maybe Patel isnt a T20 player but maybe he is!! and there wont be many more meaningless games than this one to find that out, ditto again for Plom. I also assume that the likes of Beard, Taylor and Nijjar  who have all been about for some time now are never going to be either good enough or considered good enough for T20 as again surely now would be the perfect time to give them a go.

[Andy]

Alex, that’s actually a great shout - Miller (who was and perhaps still is Essex based having played for Woodford Wells) and Fozzy as our t20 coaches - they’ve just won a global t20 event, get them in!!!

I agree, but Hasn’t Miller gone on to big things with the Windies?

[Heisenberg]

For me there are 3 main factors:

In my opinion Westley has been a big factor in our T20 slump. He has been brilliant in the T20 format in the past and has been very disappointing this season.

Matt Coles has so far been a poor signing. Only gave him a two year deal at the time which gave the impression the club were not sure on him. Talented cricketer but has been poor, (could do with loosing some weight). Considering he was brought in for the one day format only (wasnt even picked in the 4day squads at the start of season).

Overseas has been an absolute shambles. Zampa has been excellent. As for Wagner, who ever decided to bring him in for the T20 format needs a talking to. He was not even picked in the staring xi for the start and was carrying the drinks instead. When he was in the side, he was more useful for his batting than bowling ! Every year we have always had one overseas batter and one bowler. Why we changed it and brought in two bowlers is baffling. (Iqbal and Amir) (Ryer and Riaz) (Ryder and Tait) (Rutherford and Tait)

[DT]

For me there are 3 main factors:

In my opinion Westley has been a big factor in our T20 slump. He has been brilliant in the T20 format in the past and has been very disappointing this season.

Matt Coles has so far been a poor signing. Only gave him a two year deal at the time which gave the impression the club were not sure on him. Talented cricketer but has been poor, (could do with loosing some weight). Considering he was brought in for the one day format only (wasnt even picked in the 4day squads at the start of season).

Overseas has been an absolute shambles. Zampa has been excellent. As for Wagner, who ever decided to bring him in for the T20 format needs a talking to. He was not even picked in the staring xi for the start and was carrying the drinks instead. When he was in the side, he was more useful for his batting than bowling ! Every year we have always had one overseas batter and one bowler. Why we changed it and brought in two bowlers is baffling. (Iqbal and Amir) (Ryer and Riaz) (Ryder and Tait) (Rutherford and Tait)

I think Westley has two issues affecting his batting, firstly the long standing injury which can be managed but must be off putting when batting, secondly being messed about by England - should have been on The Ashes tour instead of Malan.

Ref Coles, a one year deal would show not having faith, two years is the standard.  Problem is we’ve hardly picked him, why??  When he has actually played he’s done fairly well, problem is he’s not played enough nor is batting high enough.

Agree on the last point, as much as I like Waggy the club got it wrong with regard having him for some of the t20’s - basically moving on from the point I made the other day - the whole overseas strategy was excellent last year in all cricket but poor this.  I’m still uneasy about Zampa - yes he’s had some good games (some poor) but his selection has basically meant Zaidi has hardly played and thus we’ve lost one of our best if not best late order hitters!  No reason Zampa, Zaidi and Harmer couldn’t all play as they did on Sunday but clearly those in charge think differently...

[Andy]

Agree on the last point, as much as I like Waggy the club got it wrong with regard having him for some of the t20’s - basically moving on from the point I made the other day - the whole overseas strategy was excellent last year in all cricket but poor this.  I’m still uneasy about Zampa - yes he’s had some good games (some poor) but his selection has basically meant Zaidi has hardly played and thus we’ve lost one of our best if not best late order hitters!  No reason Zampa, Zaidi and Harmer couldn’t all play as they did on Sunday but clearly those in charge think differently...

Maybe they just got lucky last year - the only problem was losing our overseas batsman prematurely, but Amir could've broken down in his first match and Waggy's 'tactics' seemed to take opposing batsmen by surprise early season.

[DT]

Agree on the last point, as much as I like Waggy the club got it wrong with regard having him for some of the t20’s - basically moving on from the point I made the other day - the whole overseas strategy was excellent last year in all cricket but poor this.  I’m still uneasy about Zampa - yes he’s had some good games (some poor) but his selection has basically meant Zaidi has hardly played and thus we’ve lost one of our best if not best late order hitters!  No reason Zampa, Zaidi and Harmer couldn’t all play as they did on Sunday but clearly those in charge think differently...

Maybe they just got lucky last year - the only problem was losing our overseas batsman prematurely, but Amir could've broken down in his first match and Waggy's 'tactics' seemed to take opposing batsmen by surprise early season.

Didn’t get lucky, the club properly planned - was said by Silverwood how they looked at what they needed to win division one - a top class spinner then with Cooky being around for 3/4 of the season they looked at a left armer to compliment Harmy - getting Amir as a like-for-like replacement was top drawer!

In terms of t20, yes we had the overseas batsman/bowler combo, just seems this season the planning for all comps has been poor...

Just touching on last seasons t20, with Iqbal only playing one game and then the club generally struggling (albeit not as much as this season) surely the alarm bells should have dictated the club get another overseas bat for the t20 this year??  Perhaps they tried and failed, perhaps they banked on getting Northeast and failed??

[Andy]

Didn’t get lucky, the club properly planned - was said by Silverwood how they looked at what they needed to win division one - a top class spinner then with Cooky being around for 3/4 of the season they looked at a left armer to compliment Harmy - getting Amir as a like-for-like replacement was top drawer!

In terms of t20, yes we had the overseas batsman/bowler combo, just seems this season the planning for all comps has been poor...

Just touching on last seasons t20, with Iqbal only playing one game and then the club generally struggling (albeit not as much as this season) surely the alarm bells should have dictated the club get another overseas bat for the t20 this year??  Perhaps they tried and failed, perhaps they banked on getting Northeast and failed??

Possibly right re Northeast, although I suspect that the club were blindsided by Spoons leaving - not that they should've been but that's No Change Essex, they tend to move very slowly and take the easiest option. To be fair, no-one knows what's happening viz The One Hundred competition anyway but just one more season of continuity with Spoons in charge would've made a heck of a difference.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that it was all luck last year - but the decisions with overseas worked and key bowlers like Porter stayed fit and we lost Westley at a time when others stepped up which hasn't happened this year.

[Reddevil]

Forgive my ignorance but what exactly is Westley’s injury and when is he likely to return?

Also, ditto for Lawrence.

With the gaping hole caused by the absence of our two most promising(not really applicable to Westley)if not best batsmen, it is no great surprise we have struggled so badly this year.

Agree totally, we do not have one aggressive world class batsman in our ranks(I see Ingram our bete noire is once again running amok), and the shout for Gayle is a goodish one, althoughI fear we could not afford him.

Given his prodigious hitting, the small boundaries would be very attractive to him.

I fear though that we might have seen the best of him. He was only picked up in the IPL at the very last minute, after RCB has discarded him. He is certainly not getting any younger.

I see Zaidi is playing again tonight. Too little too late, but hope he finds the boundary a few times tonight.

[pieinthesky]

Westleys issues are his own making. He changed his technique (tweaked in winter his words) to make him  more consistent at the highest level.

Its had the opposite effect and what talent he eventually showed in the last couple of seasons has gone and hes looked awful in all formats all season.

He needs to undo those changes and revert to waht made him a success in the first place as he aint gonna get back in the england side.

a few criticesed the signing of zampa on the clubs twitter feed when his signing was announced, and said a batter was needed. they were shouted down by the moronic noisy brigade, some who frequent this forum, that its was a masterstroke as stats say bowlers win t20s and leggoes inparticular...rollseyes...absolute garbage. stats can prove anything. if you have a team of weak hitters its clear you need at least one big hitter. likewise leggies on postage stamp grounds that you get a lot over here (not least our own ground) benefits are negated. they may prosper on the big grounds of the big bash, but not here. especially when the club had 4 ok t20 spinners...harmer, zaidi, lawrence, westley. zampa was a pointless luxury signing, but i assume he was cheap.

it was basic common sense that he wouldnt be very useful for us (i accept hes done well at times, but 4 overs doesn't make much difference to a t20 if you have no run getters) and that the aforementioned big hitters were needed.

we should have gone with 2 o/s batsmen, or at the very least 1 and a batting allrounder.

[SirChef26]

I agree that Gayle isn’t the player he once was, but that could help drive his price down and surely he would still have no trouble hitting sixes at Chelmsford. Either that or let’s throw the cat amongst the pigeons and make a cheeky offer for Ingram with the captaincy as a carrot. Something has to be done, because this can’t go on. Losing every few days is a very dangerous habit to get into both physically and mentally regardless of format.

[LeedsExile]

Ingram is already captain of Glamorgan who actually do ok at 20/20 so I do not think an offer from Essex would be of interest.

[Valentines Park]

Talented cricketer but has been poor, (could do with loosing some weight).

He has lost weight.

You should have seen the size of him when he was at Kent.

[Valentines Park]

I agree that Gayle isn’t the player he once was, but that could help drive his price down

He was playing in that Canadian T20 so I doubt he's commanding a King's ransom these days.

[Andy]

I don’t get the anti Zampa attitude. I agree we desperately need hitting power but AZ has done his job. If we could get a big hitter that would do a similarly good job then perhaps yes, but I doubt we would - and the absence of Zaidi, the misuse of him and Coles reflects muddled thinking all around the side this season.