Final 2023

[SirChef26]

Playing Das ahead of Westley has backfired big time.

You lot wanted him in the team.

Not in a big final with the pitch like this.

Game over.

[nat]

we can't lose to a bunch of straw munchers.

[essexspur]

Beard is going to score the winning runs. Its written in the stars

[nat]

How the hell did Beard get a double hundred in the 2XI?!

[essexspur]

There's some very average 18 year olds in second eleven cricket

[nat]

Oh well let's get back to proper cricket.

[spirali]

Oh well.

Congratulations to Somerset, they deserved it as the best team of the tournament.

[essexspur]

Just needed one of the top 4 to bat properly

[nat]

Oh well.

Congratulations to Somerset, they deserved it as the best team of the tournament.

We bottled it.

[kingstonj1]

Bugger

Threw it away to be honest and they had all the luck wonder catches etc. Bitter cheats. Still they will never win the CC hopefully.

[essexfan548]

No-one expected us to reach the final - Westley should have played in this match.

[essexspur]

No-one expected us to reach the final - Westley should have played in this match.

Once the pitch is tricky we might as well play The Chef

[spirali]

We bottled it

It's worth going back to that Cricinfo preview article

https://www.espncricinfo.com/story/michael-pepper-the-essex-batter-who-idolises-ab-de-villiers-1387451

The players themselves say the idea is to go hard and keep going hard. No plan B. We'd already seen it in the Surrey and Brum games where we were well ahead of the chase at the halfway point, then nearly lost by keeping on going for big hits rather than knocking it around on the ground. We'd also just seen Surrey royally screw up their semi-final chase for similar reasons. Still the lesson didn't sink in.

[SirChef26]

I’m so disappointed in Paul Walter especially. Did the hard work getting in, we needed 7.5 an over, a partnership building and he plays a shot like that against an international leggie. 29 years old, bucketloads of experience now and does that. It’s just so painstaking brainless and embarrassing. Fair play to Dan Sams who did his best. It’s so easy to say now but I honestly think we’d have won that if Westley had come in at four. He wouldn’t have tried to needlessly slog and an 7.5 over chase would have been in his wheelhouse.

But Somerset are best team in the comp and deserve the trophy. 15 wins from 17 games says it all.

[bwildered]

   Just one game to far, only win last over contests.
   Did not learn from the defeat at Taunton earlier in the season, repeated the same mistakes at a gettable target, just some smarter shot selection required.
   Catches win matches, from the first wicket and the last
   Congratulations to Ciderset .
   
   Runners up remarkable though .