Hampshire (A)

[dazedpenguin]

Squad:

Harmer, Ben Allison, Charlie Allison, Beard, Benkenstein, Bosch, Cook, Critchley, Das, Elgar, Pepper, Rossington, Snater, Walter

Benkenstein or Das or another seamer? Hampshire look stronger with Dawson back, but they don't have anything to play for.

[essexfan548]

My sister is going to the match - she doesn't have a great record of being there when Essex win.

[essexspur]

Khushi is on loan to Kent but playing in our second XI. All very odd. He walks into our T20 side. Wonder why Essex won't say what is actually going on

[JasonP]

Khushi is on loan to Kent but playing in our second XI. All very odd. He walks into our T20 side. Wonder why Essex won't say what is actually going on

I don't think he is.  He joined for 1 CC game and 3 Blast matches.  His 3 innings were 0(2), 35(19) and 22(25).  The second of those was in an 8 over innings and the last was chasing over 200 so he didn't pull up any trees there.  He's better than Das but he can score slowly at times so I wonder if they think him and Elgar in the same team is not ideal?.

[dazedpenguin]

Unchanged team:

Elgar, Rossington, Pepper, Walter, Critchley, Allison, Benkenstein, Harmer, Snater, Bosch, Cook

[Heisenberg]

Need to field a lot better too. Its been sloppy again Sussex and Surrey recently.

[nat]

No chance of chasing 180 against their bowling.

[essexfan548]

No chance of chasing 180 against their bowling.

What's happened to your boy Rosso?

[nat]

No chance of chasing 180 against their bowling.

What's happened to your boy Rosso?

He's lost his heart to a cream bun, well several actually. A shame because the boy can play.

[ytsejam1]

He's the T20 equivalent of Browne in the CC, one or two big scores a season then a string of failures.

[Heisenberg]

Unlucky to loose Cox and Sams but this has been a really dissapointing end to the T20 campaign.

[ytsejam1]

Great effort from Allison and Benkenstein but once again let down by the "senior" players, some who have been desperately disappointing for the whole competition. And can anyone explain why "run a ball" Harmer and "no runs at all!" Bosch, both came in ahead of the one real big hitter we have in our tail, Snater?!!

[nat]

Great effort from Allison and Benkenstein but once again let down by the "senior" players, some who have been desperately disappointing for the whole competition. And can anyone explain why "run a ball" Harmer and "no runs at all!" Bosch, both came in ahead of the one real big hitter we have in our tail, Snater?!!

Er, no. Harmer not reading the room.

[dazedpenguin]

Very disappointing indeed. To take some positives, the emergence of Charlie Allison and Luc Benkenstein bodes well for the future.
With no Cox and Sams it was always going to be difficult, but Walter, Rossington and Critchley had disappointing tournaments with the bat and Harmer was well below par with the ball.

[SirChef26]

I got hammered on here for my take on Elgar, who has ultimately proved me right. 61 runs from five innings since the tournament's resumption, a top score of 33 at a run-a-ball. He has no business in this format. The Nick Browne comparison with Rossington is spot on. Walter and Critchley were effectively invisible. That's four of our top six right there. Pepper has papered over some huge cracks and only his brilliance has seen us get even close to a top four finish. I don't blame Cox's injury at all because his replacement, Allison has scored over 100 runs in three innings. It's the untouchables within the line-up who've blown it for us.

As for the bowling, we're paying an overseas player to bowl one over a game and bat at nine, when based on tonight he should be batting at 11! No wonder it's seemingly caused unrest behind the scenes. Cook has leaked crucial runs at the back end of innings, arguably making us worse since coming back and as for Harmer, we all know his limitations in this format. Only Snater appears to have kicked on.

Not forgetting the fielding, which has been sub-par since coming back from the Championship break and the running between the wickets. We have a batting line-up full of crabs bar the youngsters and the amount of 2s we miss out on is infuriating. Oh for the days of Ravi, Tendo and Foz. Well played to Ravi by the way on his home quarter-final, if only we still had him around!

That's the debrief done with, a real failure to not make the top four and only a few can come out of it with heads held high. It's important not to place too much expectation on a young lad, but Benkenstein really does have the skills to potentially become an elite cricketer. I'd put him on the same level as Rehan Ahmed at this point and I suspect he'll be the first player we lose when injuries strike the crisp cup.