With the release of the 2024 fixtures, it is probably time to start a new thread. These are the main points to come from these:
Kent Men will welcome Somerset to The Spitfire Ground, St Lawrence on the opening day of the 2024 County Championship season
Six of Kent Spitfires’ seven home Vitality Blast group matches in 2024 take place on Friday evenings or at weekends
Kent Spitfires’ home T20 match with Essex will fall on ECB’s ‘Rivals Week’, the Surrey home fixture will be on ‘Friday Finale’ and there will be a T20 double header again in 2024 with the South East Stars
The 172nd Canterbury Cricket Week will take place from Friday 21 – Wednesday 26 June
Over 1,800 tickets have already been sold for the England Women vs. New Zealand International T20 at The Spitfire Ground on 11 July
Half of Kent Spitfires’ home Metro Bank One Day Cup group matches will take place at The County Ground, Beckenham – with nine days of cricket scheduled for Beckenham so far
All domestic Men’s finals will take place in September in 2024
Kent Men’s final match of the season will take place away at Durham from 26 September
The two Umpires in this game are Nigel Llong and James Treadwell - both former Kent players, both former right arm off break bowlers, both former left handed batsmen and both were born in Ashford. How's that for a set of coincidences?
Wicket to Parkinson, notionally a "bowled" albeit that it can be attributed to the looseness of the batter who threw his hands extravagantly at the bowl only to chop on in doing so.
The micro climate that is Canterbury has meant that rain has stopped play at 51-2 off 23 overs. Nightwatchman Max Luckett was caught by Stewart in the deep off the bowling of Evison.
James Cronie has done what his skipper failed to do by one run - reach his hundred and off just 83 balls too and is eventually out for 107 off the bowling of Leaning.
Fortunately, I think our attack (and in particular that of today) in this match will bear no resemblance to the one that plays in our first match given assuming that we have the two Aussies with probably Quinn and Parkinson to back them up.
Muyeye bowled for 2 by Petrie. His scores to date in warm up games have been:
4 21 5 15 0 2
I've said it before but I do not believe that he is a red ball opener especially in conditions that are prevalent at this time of year. Of course, Crawley being available would solve that issue.
Match finishes with Kent on 54-2. DBD with 19* (32) and Leaning 20* (37) the two not out players.
So, on to Friday and Somerset in the CC. Starting tomorrow is a 2nd XI game between Hants and a combined Lancs/Kent side. That is a bit of a strange one as it appears to have been added to the calendar but it's safe to assume that any of our players involved in that won't be in the squad for Friday.
Big blow - Xavier Bartlett has been declined permission by Cricket Australia to join us following his awarding of a Central Contract. South African all-rounder Beyers Swanepoel will join us on May 1st instead.
Disappointing - was really looking forward to seeing Bartlett - hopefully, he will get some games in the Blast. Good to get another seemingly promising-looking one in.
On the eve of the new season too. Even with agar I fear this bowling line up is considerably weak than other teams. We Somehow need to get through these next four games.
How are other Australians allowed to play? Don’t understand it
Crawley has made himself unavailable for the first two CC matches but should be available to play for Kent across all formats until England’s Test Series with West Indies in July, barring any further international call-ups.
Quinn (back) and Stewart (calf) are out injured and Cohen is out for the season with a stress fracture - so that's two signings who won't be playing for us this year. Cohen was a very Charlton like signing, given that he's played one game in the last two years.
Confused with the Bartlett news , Boland is over playing for Durham, Renshaw with Somerset , Lyon with Lancashire. The Aussies do seem to have gone very very protective quite last minute. Wouldn't be surprised if you now don't see Marnus over at all.
I'd be surprised if we left our marquee signing out. Indeed I imagine we'll be trying to create pitches, even in April, that will suit Parkinson, rather than Stevo greentops
Confused with the Bartlett news , Boland is over playing for Durham, Renshaw with Somerset , Lyon with Lancashire. The Aussies do seem to have gone very very protective quite last minute. Wouldn't be surprised if you now don't see Marnus over at all.
As has been mentioned, fast bowlers tend to be treated differently to batsmen specifically with regard to workloads. Bartlett was only announced as being centrally contracted for the first time last week so up until that point Australia had no say in whether he joins us or not. He's also been playing non stop for the last six months (red and white ball for country, state and franchise) whereas Boland has only played half a dozen games in the last four months.
England are no different when it comes to such anomalies. There have been frequent occasions when one England player is turning out for their county whereas another is off playing golf.
I'd be surprised if we left our marquee signing out. Indeed I imagine we'll be trying to create pitches, even in April, that will suit Parkinson, rather than Stevo greentops
I would be surprised if we left him out too (and wouldn't even have mentioned the possibility had we had Bartlett available) though it is as much atmospheric conditions at this time of year that make the likes of Stevo dangerous. It's also impossible to get away from the fact that with the amount of rain we've had over the course of the winter, there won't be the bounce that will suit a leggie like Parkinson.
Somerset have named the following squad for the fixture: Lewis Gregory, Tom Banton, Sean Dickson, Matt Renshaw, Tom Lammonby, Ben Green, James Rew, Lewis Goldsworthy, Kasey Aldridge, Josh Davey, Jake Ball, Shoaib Bashir and Ned Leonard.
Comments
297-4
323-4
Evison the last man out for 37 (43) with minimal contributions from Stewart, Parkinson and Singh
38-1
234-3
203-4
Fortunately, I think our attack (and in particular that of today) in this match will bear no resemblance to the one that plays in our first match given assuming that we have the two Aussies with probably Quinn and Parkinson to back them up.
354-5
4
21
5
15
0
2
I've said it before but I do not believe that he is a red ball opener especially in conditions that are prevalent at this time of year. Of course, Crawley being available would solve that issue.
0
0
11
49*
11
8
So, not that much better than Muyeye, but his technique is, generally speaking, tighter than that of Muyeye.
So, on to Friday and Somerset in the CC. Starting tomorrow is a 2nd XI game between Hants and a combined Lancs/Kent side. That is a bit of a strange one as it appears to have been added to the calendar but it's safe to assume that any of our players involved in that won't be in the squad for Friday.
Interview with Billings about giving up red ball cricket
Bats:
Compton
Crawley
DBD
Denly (Joe)
Leaning
Muyeye
O'Riordan
Keepers:
Billings
Finch
Spinners:
Denly (Jaydn)
Parkinson
Qadri
Seamers:
Agar
Bartlett
Bhuiyan
Cohen
Evison
Garrett
Gilchrist
Klaassen
Quinn
Singh
Stewart
Swanepoel
How are other Australians allowed to play? Don’t understand it
Quinn (back) and Stewart (calf) are out injured and Cohen is out for the season with a stress fracture - so that's two signings who won't be playing for us this year. Cohen was a very Charlton like signing, given that he's played one game in the last two years.
The squad for our first game starting tomorrow:
Compton
Muyeye
DBD
Leaning
Denly
Finch
Evison
Agar
Gilchrist
Singh
Parkinson (Garrett/Bhuiyan)
As has been mentioned, fast bowlers tend to be treated differently to batsmen specifically with regard to workloads. Bartlett was only announced as being centrally contracted for the first time last week so up until that point Australia had no say in whether he joins us or not. He's also been playing non stop for the last six months (red and white ball for country, state and franchise) whereas Boland has only played half a dozen games in the last four months.
England are no different when it comes to such anomalies. There have been frequent occasions when one England player is turning out for their county whereas another is off playing golf.