Cricket

BUTCHER'S BLOCK

Comments (0)

28 August 2008

ALAN BUTCHER'S VIEW

IT'S BEEN a reasonably positive week at The Oval after two good performances in two competitions, but we are still looking for that all important win in the Championship.

We performed really well for long periods against Sussex and we picked up another good haul of bonus points but it was frustrating not to get our first win. It was another magnificent batting display from Ramps. He is playing beautifully at the moment. He's made three big scores since he got his hundredth hundred and looks to be in as good form as ever.

I was a bit disappointed that he didn't get enough support from the tail. That's been something of a trend for us this season and it meant we were a bit short of what we would have liked in our first innings.

Our bowlers performed excellently and were let down by some poor catching which meant we lost the chance to push for the follow-on. However, I still thought we had a great chance of winning the game even if we didn't score as quickly as we could have in the second innings.

The pitch was turning and we thought we had a chance to bowl them out in 60 overs without having to tempt them into a run chase. We had them at 30 for three and it looked like the win was on the cards, but their two lads played very well. If we'd got a couple of quick wickets we could still have put the pressure on them, but we missed some opportunities and we'll just have to try getting a result against Lancashire.

Having said that, we could be frustrated again. The forecast does not look good in Blackpool and the way the pitch is looking you'd struggle to play a football match on there let alone a game of cricket.

Meanwhile, the one day side is really starting to click. We've played really well in the last four Pro40 games, even at Chelmsford where we were unlucky to lose on the Duckworth-Lewis system.

Our performances in the field have been very good, and our batsmen have discovered the knack of making a defendable total. At times this year we haven't managed to get a workable total when batting first. We thought we needed 30 or 40 more runs and ended up over-reaching ourselves and getting 30 or 40 less.

Now we've started giving the bowlers an even chance of getting the result and they have responded to that. Jade Dernbach in particular has been very impressive recently.

It's really just down to playing more sensible cricket instead of just blazing away and trying to get a massive score. We are a young team and you can see that we are learning as we go, and beginning to get some good results along the way too.

Off the pitch, I am still disappointed by some of the things that have taken place, but as far as the players are concerned they've just been getting on with the job. Morale has always been good and continues to be so. I spoke of the siege mentality last week and maybe that has kicked in.

It's always nice to think you have the support of people behind the scenes. One or two have shown that support while others could do a little more. But ultimately we stand or fall by results on the pitch. That's down to the guys in the dressing room, not the board room, and I can't fault their efforts.

DISCUSS Cricket on our Sports Forum!

---

Social Bookmarks:
del.icio.us Digg Newsvine Reddit Facebook StumbleUpon
Wikipedia: social bookmarking

---

Comments (0)

No comments have been posted.

Post a Comment

Please note Name and E-mail Address are required.

Name
E-mail Address (not displayed)
Comment (you may use HTML tags for style)
Enter Text Shown in Picture*
Comments are moderated, and will not appear on this article until the comment has been approved.