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Ball by ball commentary (If you can understand the foreign accent)

[www.cricketcommentary.co.uk]

Jon

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Down by the Riverside - Unofficial Durham Cricket
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technical director
sportnetwork.net

What's with this obsession of putting Somerset into bat?
It backfired in predictable fashion at our place so it seems astonishing we'd do the same thing at Taunton of all places.
A ridiculous decision, we're not out of it yet but isn't winning the toss supposed to be an advantage?

No idea why we put them in... to be honest the rule I always remember hearing was if you win the toss then bat unless the conditions look really bowler friendly, in that case think about bowling first but still bat...

Jon

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Down by the Riverside - Unofficial Durham Cricket
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technical director
sportnetwork.net

Apparently we bowled because there was some grass on the pitch-however according to The Journal there has often been grass on the pitch at Taunton this season and it hasn't made any difference at all-it only looks as if it may favour the seamers!
So it was a foolish mistake.

Amazing how this match has followed the same pattern as the home game against Somerset. We won the toss and bowled both times, Somerset made huge first innings scores and then an abject Durham collapse followed by a magnificent fightback in the follow on.
We should be able to pull off another great escape tomorrow, still a lot of work to do though because one wicket can bring...well about 8 judging by the morning session!
No surprise that the great man Diva is back in form, there was no way he'd have a prolonged run of low scores and it's just a shame he fell just short of 100.

I'm delighted for Will Smith, treated unfairly last year imo and instead of sulking and complaining he has fought back and shown how good a player he is.

Sorry it didn't quite follow the first match plan guys and gals. We were better this time and the pitch did give bowlers enough. Good game though. Excellent performance by Smith in both innings and Claydon was the pick of your men with the ball.

Why did you choose Harmison over Borthwick? That was a surprise.

Match report on Grockles

CC1 Stand or Fall

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The pitch was not green even at the toss there was only a slight tinge of green looking at it from the boundary, so close up it wouldn’t have looked green.



For the first two day’s of the match there was quite a bit of rain so the pitch wouldn’t have got less green

You can see from the photo of Mitchell Claydon bowling Nick Compton that the pitch was not green.

By the way Mitchell Claydon was your best bowler, and Steve Harmison I think I had better not say much about his bowling, he only bowled two overs when he first came onto bowl.

That's a wonderful picture...pity from our point of view it wasn't typical of the match!

I'm not sure why we dropped Borthwick who has been an ever-present in the CC this season. Seems very strange to me to suddenly change a formula that has worked well. Then again he was dropped for Claydon who was the most effective bowler.

Harmy came into the match not having bowled in a while so it'sd no surprise he struggled-what is not clear is why (unlike Thorp) he didn't play in a second team game to get some overs under his belt.

I still find the decision to bowl astonishing, Geoff Cook made strange comment about it at the conclusion of the game-saying it could be a tricky pitch to read because we were put in to bat a couple of years ago and scored 543! Very odd.

Anyway, whatever we should have done at the toss or with team selection, it was a well deserved win for Somerset. Can't make excuses or have any complaints, just have to congratulate the opposition.

Testing something

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Down by the Riverside - Unofficial Durham Cricket
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technical director
sportnetwork.net