2014 County Cricket

This is the place to discuss this years County Championship, One Day cup and t20 Blast! I'm a Hampshire fan btw.

Yep Kent still around as the Spitfires, but not a great squad at the moment. Bollinger is their main overseas player, but they don't have too many good English players right now

Well, just had a look at some betting odds, in county championship D1, Yorkshire are favourites, in D2 Hampshire are (Kent 4th). In both one day and t20, Hampshire are favourites, followed by Nottingham and Somerset, with Kent fairly low down (13th-18th). Surprised to see Hampshire so high up but we've got a great squad of young players and Glenn Maxwell is our overseas t20 player so that should be good. A treble would be incredible!

Kyle Abbott is our main overseas player btw, you know much of him?

Who is he?

He played 1 test for SA, I think he's mainly here to try to make the SA squad for the tour in England next year. Had a great start though

He took 5-67 on Hampshire debut innings, and now 11 wickets in 3 innings. I see he played his second test in March vs Australia, now averages ~16 in test bowling. Very tricky to get in the SA team as a fast bowler though!

Yeah 2 FC games but 'only' division 2. Having said that he's got the 2 batsmen who have hit hundreds vs us out (a useful skill) and his other wickets include Michael Klinger and Hamish Marshall, and I think he had Shiv Chanderpaul dropped. If he can keep that up he'll be great for both Hants and SA!

Going back to Maxwell, we kinda discovered his t20 talent 2-3 seasons ago when he was in the second XI and smashed 100odd off only 33 (I think). He then managed a few 60s in the team at 200SR and got selected for Australia soon after. I think we then went on to win the tourney (although he was away with the Aussies)! Great to have him back!

And despite this we don't have the big t20 players like Gayle, McCullum, Narine, Kohli competing, so our t20 league isn't so highly thought of as those in India, Australia and South Africa particularly

Not too sure, I especially love the finals day we have at the end, where both semi finals and the final are played on one day in one ground, it's always a great atmosphere with fans of all four teams and I think one year the two semi finals were both tied so I don't understand the lack of popularity! It's still the most popular in England but not so much worldwide, maybe the new 't20 blast' format will sort it

I guess it's not so good if your team loses in the first semi. In 2010 I managed to go, and Hampshire needed 8 to win off the last over, with 5 wickets down - Somerset had lost 6. It went to 3 off 2 balls, and the last 2 balls took about 15 minutes! This is what happened, so exciting!:

Ball five Everything happening! Another short ball. Pulled firmly to midwicket by Christian - that's four. But no! The man on the rope sprawls full-length, stops it miraculously and only two are taken. In the chaos Christian has pulled a hamstring. He remains on strike, but Jimmy Adams is walking out as his runner. So one needed to win from the last ball, with a lame batsman on strike, and a runner involved.

Ball six We have a long wait here. With no crease lines marked on the neighbouring strips the umpires are worried they won't be able to tell whether the runner - Jimmy Adams - has made his ground or not. So the groundsmen appear with buckets of whitewash to mark out creases on the neighbouring wickets.

Kieswetter is up to the wicket to prevent a bye to the keeper.

Hampshire win! Inswinger from De Bruyn, huge lbw shout (going down the leg side), but the batsmen can take a leg bye. The scores end tied; Hampshire win on fewer wickets lost.

In the heat of the moment, Christian went for that last run even though he was injured, and could have actually therefore been run out, but they threw it at the other end. Don't see this all happening often, it's the excitement of finals day! Such as great atmosphere, and so devastating for them to lose this way (as it happens, in 2010 and 2011 Somerset finished 2nd in 5 of the 6 tournaments those seasons!)

I remember after it ended as a tie, having no idea what had happened, and fans from both teams just stood there looking confused. It was just bizarre, I hope to go to another one sometime soon. Don't understand why they don't do this in other t20 leagues, it's an amazing spectacle and you get huge crowds. Perhaps the champions league should try that, could increase excitement about it and presumably worth loads of TV revenue, too

Never seen much rugby 7s, what's that like? I always played hockey rather than rugby, although I've probably got the right physique for rugby... Sounds much more exciting with on,y 7 players though, 15 can be slow but 7 sounds great, will have to check that out when I have the chance

Superb catch from the t20 blast yesterday!

http://youtu.be/n1wXJnBjAl8

These are almost becoming common, maybe they practice it?!

Also on the 6th June, Dan Christian hit the first century of the season, a fantastic 129 off just 57 balls. Somehow, his Middlesex side still lost to Kent, who had scored over 200.