Kent under GrahamB (v12.24)

[GrahamB]

GLAMORGAN v KENT (County Championship D2)

The home side won the toss and predictably chose to bat first.
Opening batsman, Will Bragg, anchored the innings with a fine knock of 158.
19 year old Steve Myerscough scored his maiden first class century to continue the momentum after Bragg had been dismissed.
Rees (42) and North (46) also contributed in the top order, while the tail wagged with Graham Wagg scoring 50.
We finally had Glamorgan back in the pavilion for 523 all out, but it was obvious that a draw would be the best we were going to get from this match.
20 year old Neil Naylor showed what a useful all-round player he is, claiming 5/118 with his slow left armers.
Our young spinner, Adam Riley, had figures of 3/163 in comparison.

Centuries from openers Naylor (170) and Key (113) pretty much carried our reply of 488, with Cowdrey (47) the only other batsman to build upon his start.
Cosker was the best of the home bowlers, taking 4/127 on a pitch that had started turning early.

Rees (70) and Bragg (74) showed good form again in Glamorgan's second innings, helping their side race through to 166/2 declared, just before tea.

However, the result was a foregone conclusion, and our openers, Naylor and Key, were still at the crease when the umpires called play off early due to bad light.



Notice the number of draws that we had compared with the AI teams.

[cricfan1]

Notice the number of draws that we had compared with the AI teams.

You are in building a team I believe after 2-3 session this draw stats will not be same

[GrahamB]

Summary (First Class)

Opening Batsmen
Rob Key came right after a patchy start to average 50.64 (four centuries and five half centuries), while our new youth signing Neil Naylor averaged 47.50 with the bat (three centuries and six half centuries) and 37.58 with the ball.
Back up opener, Sam Northeast, played five matches and averaged 51.00 (one century and three half centuries).

Other Batsmen
Overseas player, Brendan Nash was superb, averaging 60.95 (four centuries and eight half centuries).
During the four matches that we were able to access Hamilton Masakadza's services, he scored two centuries and two half centuries, averaging 89.20.
Youth player, Dominic Cole, who moved up into the first team mid-season, proved to be a very promising find. He averaged 58.85 over 16 innings, scoring seven half centuries.
35 year old Mike Powell, had a slow start, but ended up averaging 52.26, with four centuries and six half centuries.
Of the others, Alex Blake averaged 38.80 (four half centuries) and Fabian Cowdrey averaged 32.18 (one half century), while veteran keeper Geraint Jones (19.88 over 12 matches) and Darren Stevens (7.86 over four matches) were abject failures.
Back up keepers, Sam Billings (5 matches - 24.14 average) and Rod McDowell (2 matches - 24.67 average) didn't set the world on file either.

Bowlers
Mark Davies was our only pace bowler to pick up wickets at an average of less than 40 (56 wickets at 33.66), while James Tredwell bagged 38 wickets at an average of 35.53.
Opening batsman Neil Naylor took 12 wickets at an average of 37.58 with his part-time spin.
19 year old left arm pace bowler Adam Ball was the most promising of the youngsters, taking 25 wickets at 44.80, and being the most economical as well.

[GrahamB]

You are in building a team I believe after 2-3 session this draw stats will not be same

I'm thinking that could be the case too. Let's see.

[GrahamB]

2013 Season

All-rounder Azhar Mahmood was the only squad member to retire.

We terminated the contracts of three youth players from our squad - opening batsman Chris Piesley and pace bowlers Ivan Thomas and Ashley Shaw.
We decided to stick with the more promising of the young bowlers, pace bowler Ben Kemp and spin bowler Adam Riley.

Some whose contracts had expired were not re-signed - opening batsman Daniel Bell-Drummond, young keepers Sam Billings and Rod McDowell, and all-rounder Ben Harmison.

Some others whose contracts had expired were re-signed to further contracts - batsmen Mike Powell and Alex Blake, and pace bowler Adam Ball. Pace bowler Simon Cook was also snapped up at the last minute to fill out the squad.

We opted not to re-sign Brendan Nash as our overseas player, even though he'd been sensational for us.
It was our bowling that needed boosting and so we signed up pace bowler Vernon Philander. Our reserve overseas player is pace bowler Mervin Matthew.

Our first disappointment was our failure to get pace bowler Mark Davies to re-sign with us. We tried to negotiate a slightly cheaper contract that he asked for, causing him to jump ship to Sussex!
Hindsight is a wonderful thing and I wish I'd just agreed to his initial demands.

The failure to re-sign Davies meant that our key targets were a couple more good pace bowlers and a decent keeper.
We signed up pace bowlers Tim Murtagh and Andy Carter, who both look handy.
Two keepers met our criteria, Niall O'Brien and Tim Ambrose. We opted for Ambrose.

In addition to those three key signings, we snapped up young all-rounders Erik Beckett and Luke Procter, mainly for their batting abilities.
Our other big disappointment was in being too slow to sign up all-rounder Ross Whitely, who would have been a tremendous acquisition.

KENT SQUAD 2013 (with FC averages)

Opening Batsmen
47.50 - Neil Naylor (37.58 - OS)
42.05 - Rob Key (captain)
29.77 - Sam Northeast

Other Batsmen
58.85 - Dominic Cole
39.19 - Mike Powell
35.67 - Luke Procter
33.33 - Tim Ambrose (wk)
33.03 - Darren Stevens (31.98 - RM)
32.18 - Fabian Cowdrey
31.58 - Geraint Jones (wk)
26.62 - Alex Blake
20.41 - Matt Coles (38.37 - RMF)
14.00 - E.Beckett

Pace Bowlers
19.51 - Vernon Philander (RFM 26.08 batting)
28.07 - Tim Murtagh (RFM 22.85 batting)
29.39 - Andy Carter (RFM)
30.97 - Charlie Shreck (RFM)
32.99 - Sam Cook (RFM)
44.80 - Adam Ball (LFM)
50.15 - Ben Kemp (RFM)

Spin Bowlers
34.75 - James Tredwell (OS 23.57 batting)
46.94 - Adam Riley (OS)

[GrahamB]

News

England failed to progress from the group stage at the T20 World Cup, going down to both Afghanistan and India in the group matches.

England then went to India, where they exacted revenge by winning the test series 4-0 and the ODI series 3-2. The two T20 matches finished 1-1.

England then went to NZ and cleaned them up 3-0 in the Tests, 5-0 in the ODI series and 2-0 in the T20 series.
Ross Whitely had a good tour with the bat. Damn - we could have had him in our Kent squad - what a missed opportunity that was.

[GrahamB]

More News

Vernon Philander is playing in an overseas league, while back up overseas player Mervin Matthew has been selected by the West Indies. Looks like we're going to be toughing it on the bowling front again initially!

[GrahamB]

Our opening match of the season is at home against the more heavily favoured Hampshire side.
The pitch looks likely to produce a result, with batting promising to become difficult early on.

[GrahamB]

KENT v HAMPSHIRE (County Championship D2 2013)

When Carberry (68) and Katich (63) put on a century stand, there were definitely thoughts of deja vu from last season.
However, Murtagh and Tredwell picked up two wickets apiece as we reduced the visitors to 237/5.
Then Jimmy Adams (66) and keeper Michael Bates (85) came together to take the game away from us again with a partnership worth 138 runs.
We eventually dismissed Hampshire for 435, but the pitch was already giving uneven bounce and turn, so we were really up against it.
Murtagh finished with 4/132 on his debut for us, while Tredwell took 3/73.

Nodody expected the extent of the carnage that was our first innings.
Of the top order, only Cole (32) was able to put up some resistance, until Ambrose (34) and Tredwell (47) showed good pluck to get us through to 175 all out.
Ali (3/54), Griffiths (3/45) and Briggs (3/37) all bowled superbly to take advantage of the favourable bowling conditions.

We were asked to follow on, and to be brutally honest, nobody expected us to survive on this pitch.
However, ater both of our openers were back in the pavilion at 60/2, Cole (53) and Powell (97) put together a fighting partnership of 135 to give us slim hopes of survival.
When Powell got bogged down and was dismissed just short of a well deserved century, we had slumped again to 281/6 and were still in very real danger of defeat.
Thankfully young Fabian Cowdrey (60no) showed maturity beyond his years to hold things together with excellent support from Erik Beckett (43) and we were able to declare at 384/7 (off 159 overs).
Briggs (3/83) and Griffiths (2/62) were again dangerous.

Murtagh and Carter were let loose for half an hour on the Hampshire batting and Carter was rewarded with the scalp of Katich, as the visitors ended up at 33/1 at the end.

[DaveK93]

We signed up pace bowlers Tim Murtagh and Andy Carter, who both look handy.

I thoroughly recommend Andy Carter, he's been great for me at Notts, standout bowler from last season. Hopefully he'll be the same for you!

[GrahamB]

I thoroughly recommend Andy Carter, he's been great for me at Notts, standout bowler from last season. Hopefully he'll be the same for you!

Fingers crossed because losing Mark Davies was a big thing for us.

[GrahamB]

LOUGHBORO UNIVERSITY v KENT (Three Day Match)

I took the opportunity to give some of the fringe players a run in this one.
Loughboro proved to be very worthy opponents and we were given a good workout.
It was a memorable match for Dominic Cole, who scored his maiden first class century at last.

[GrahamB]

Off to Derbyshire for our County Championship game.
The playing eleven is unchanged from that which took the field against Hampshire.

[habib]

Lot of draws!!!
It looks like you will eventually get better team after 2/3 more seasons. Good luck

[GrahamB]

Lot of draws!!!
It looks like you will eventually get better team after 2/3 more seasons. Good luck

Hopefully Philander will help us achieve some results, if he ever becomes available!