Coach’s Corner – Farby’s Blog – 5 September

A very enjoyable win over Essex, and even losing 8 points, and I will come back to that; it was an excellent win and I thought the side played with real fight and some very good skill. Jonah and Treddy put on a superb partnership to take the game away from the visitors, and again our bowling unit did very well.

David Balcombe has done very well for us, he has run in at every opportunity and showed his class with some very high quality spells of bowling. I expect a call from Southampton every week, and almost plan now that he won`t play the next game, but we will have to keep our fingers crossed that their seamers all stay fit. He deserves his place up on the board for his 10 wickets in the match.

It was a tough wicket to play on and our batsmen worked hard to score their runs and get in front on first innings. I don’t think we would have wanted to chase much more than a 100 on the third morning. Essex didn’t get their bowling unit bowling as well as ours, and in the end that was the difference between the teams.

The decision to deduct 8 points was expected and we couldn’t have appealed, it would have been the wrong decision. Sadly the pitch wasn’t good enough and the inconsistent bounce made it very hard for the batters on both sides. It is not a time to point fingers, it is a time to assess why the pitch wasn’t good enough and to make sure we are not in that position again.

I have read articles saying we should have been more forceful with the pitch panel concerning the game at Lords earlier in the season, but I disagree. Essex may have been quite forceful in their views about the surface at Canterbury, but it certainly didn’t influence the decision to deduct points. The pitch at Lords was damp and had been covered for 60 of the previous 72 hours; that was because of the bad weather. It did seam a lot on the first day, but it would have been very harsh to have deducted points on that occasion.

There are massive inconsistencies with regards to the pitches up and down the country and the panels that look at them. Each Pitch Liaison Officer seems to look for different things. We have certainly played on some other interesting wickets this year. Something needs to be in place that is fair and consistent to all. I would however say again that we can have no complaints about our penalty last week. My comments are not based on sour grapes, but consistency has to be the key word here.

Two games left in the Championship this season, and that still means plenty to play for. All of the players on the staff this year have had opportunity to play and this week at Derby will be no different. We are going to be without three senior players; although that does again mean other people will get their chance. Rob will be missing with a wrist injury, Jarre with a groin injury and Tred with a hamstring injury. There is every chance that all three have played their last games of the season for us.

We had our final Club forum on cricket last week during the Essex game, and it was very well supported, with some excellent questions. I did say at the end of the forum that they can be quite tough hours, especially early season explaining some tough defeats. The message at the end of the season isn’t wow how well have we done, more we have made some progress with some of the younger players, the squad as a whole has kept fighting and the desire the team has showed since the horrible defeat at Grace Road has been excellent. That isn’t to paper over, it has been a disappointing season and our three goals were to challenge for promotion from Division 2, and qualify for the later stages of the two one day tournaments. We achieved one of those goals.

There is a lot of hard work ahead of us, and hopefully some new faces if we are to continue the good form we have shown in the last few weeks and push on and keep improving as a squad and a team. That is hard work for all of us, players and coaches, and there will be no shortage of desire to do that.

On a different note I would also like to mention somebody who has been fantastic in their role at the club this year, John Shepherd, he has been outstanding as President of the Club. He has attended every four day game, been to most one day games and has been a true supporter of the team and the players. It was a great appointment in the first place, and whoever takes over has one very big pair of shoes to fill.

I need to finish with an apology. I mentioned last week about Joe and Barry Dyer and the mystery phone call. Barry came to see me this week to say that as much as he was happy he got a mention, I had spelt his name wrong!! It is spelt with i not y, so sorry Baz, so just for the record it was Barry Dier who was conned by Joe on the phone.

Best wishes,

Farby.