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Anyone fancy a day watching Essex at the cricket today 11:17 - Sep 22 with 1705 viewsusm

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Anyone fancy a day watching Essex at the cricket today on 11:21 - Sep 22 with 1691 viewsSaleAway

Essex should have claimed the extra half hour last night....

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Anyone fancy a day watching Essex at the cricket today on 12:15 - Sep 22 with 1638 viewsSharkey

It's genuinely a problem that Essex's games at Chelmsford never go anything approaching the distance. Yes, we tend to win a lot, but the idea was meant to be to provide a spectator sport. I think the club needs to re-evaluate its priorities.
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Anyone fancy a day watching Essex at the cricket today on 12:39 - Sep 22 with 1606 viewsSWGF

Anyone fancy a day watching Essex at the cricket today on 12:15 - Sep 22 by Sharkey

It's genuinely a problem that Essex's games at Chelmsford never go anything approaching the distance. Yes, we tend to win a lot, but the idea was meant to be to provide a spectator sport. I think the club needs to re-evaluate its priorities.


How should they re-evaluate priorities, so they don't win so easily/quickly?

Let Alistair Cook open the bowling?

Their issue was not winning many of their first four or five Championship games back in April.

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Anyone fancy a day watching Essex at the cricket today on 12:46 - Sep 22 with 1573 viewshatch

Anyone fancy a day watching Essex at the cricket today on 12:39 - Sep 22 by SWGF

How should they re-evaluate priorities, so they don't win so easily/quickly?

Let Alistair Cook open the bowling?

Their issue was not winning many of their first four or five Championship games back in April.


Yes, some rain affected matches if I remember correctly too.

Not sure the Chelmsford pitch is the problem as we've had a number of innings victories away from home lately too.

I was at Day 4 of the Surrey game at the Oval last week and were it not for the rain then Essex would have won that by an innings too.

Had a chat with Harmer and Sir Ali after the game, was trying to gauge if Cooky has more seasons in him. I would have thought it would be announced before today if he wasn't going to be here next season. Although his kit bag was missing wheels and he was dragging it along the ground, which made me wonder if he hasn't bothered getting a new one as he only had a couple of games left....
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Anyone fancy a day watching Essex at the cricket today on 12:48 - Sep 22 with 1569 viewsSaleAway

Anyone fancy a day watching Essex at the cricket today on 12:15 - Sep 22 by Sharkey

It's genuinely a problem that Essex's games at Chelmsford never go anything approaching the distance. Yes, we tend to win a lot, but the idea was meant to be to provide a spectator sport. I think the club needs to re-evaluate its priorities.


To be fair, people usually complain that Chelmsford is biased for spinners, to give Harmer an advantage, but this capitulation by Northants is more about them not being engaged than anything else. The thing for Essex, is that they have epic new ball bowlers, and a great spinner. So you have to either front up in the first innings, or hold on in the 4th. Neither are great options. But if you can see off the new ball, there are some runs to be had.

Essex's problems this season have been about not making enough runs. Their attack is ridiculous. Porter and Cook up front, Snater this year is taking change bowler wickets, and Harmer is always a threat.

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Anyone fancy a day watching Essex at the cricket today on 12:54 - Sep 22 with 1529 viewshatch

Anyone fancy a day watching Essex at the cricket today on 12:48 - Sep 22 by SaleAway

To be fair, people usually complain that Chelmsford is biased for spinners, to give Harmer an advantage, but this capitulation by Northants is more about them not being engaged than anything else. The thing for Essex, is that they have epic new ball bowlers, and a great spinner. So you have to either front up in the first innings, or hold on in the 4th. Neither are great options. But if you can see off the new ball, there are some runs to be had.

Essex's problems this season have been about not making enough runs. Their attack is ridiculous. Porter and Cook up front, Snater this year is taking change bowler wickets, and Harmer is always a threat.


Westley and Browne have had OK season - Walter is still yet to hit a ton I think but scored 91 the other week. Gradual improvement given Lawrence has been missing for many of the games.

But I'd agree the bowling threat isn't in question as you have described. I'm quite stunned by our sustained success in recent years, it's quite impressive and long may it continue!
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Anyone fancy a day watching Essex at the cricket today on 12:57 - Sep 22 with 1517 viewsitfcjoe

Anyone fancy a day watching Essex at the cricket today on 12:54 - Sep 22 by hatch

Westley and Browne have had OK season - Walter is still yet to hit a ton I think but scored 91 the other week. Gradual improvement given Lawrence has been missing for many of the games.

But I'd agree the bowling threat isn't in question as you have described. I'm quite stunned by our sustained success in recent years, it's quite impressive and long may it continue!


I read this last week, and it really seems strange that someone wants to come in and chuck weight around when reality is Essex just had a bad start to the season and have been fairly impeccable in last 3-4 years bar that.

https://www.espncricinfo.com/story/county-news-strife-at-essex-as-board-calls-fo

This bit at the end rings alarm bells re Cook:

His return is understood to be resisted by club stalwarts such as Graham Gooch, David Acfield and Keith Fletcher. A report in the Daily Mail also suggested that Sir Alastair Cook, who is out of contract at the club at the end of this season, may be reluctant to sign a new deal if Irani's influence at the club is increased.

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Anyone fancy a day watching Essex at the cricket today on 12:58 - Sep 22 with 1503 viewsSWGF

Anyone fancy a day watching Essex at the cricket today on 12:46 - Sep 22 by hatch

Yes, some rain affected matches if I remember correctly too.

Not sure the Chelmsford pitch is the problem as we've had a number of innings victories away from home lately too.

I was at Day 4 of the Surrey game at the Oval last week and were it not for the rain then Essex would have won that by an innings too.

Had a chat with Harmer and Sir Ali after the game, was trying to gauge if Cooky has more seasons in him. I would have thought it would be announced before today if he wasn't going to be here next season. Although his kit bag was missing wheels and he was dragging it along the ground, which made me wonder if he hasn't bothered getting a new one as he only had a couple of games left....


Pretty sure Gray Nicholls would sort him out if he needed a new coffin!

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Anyone fancy a day watching Essex at the cricket today on 13:02 - Sep 22 with 1493 viewshatch

Anyone fancy a day watching Essex at the cricket today on 12:57 - Sep 22 by itfcjoe

I read this last week, and it really seems strange that someone wants to come in and chuck weight around when reality is Essex just had a bad start to the season and have been fairly impeccable in last 3-4 years bar that.

https://www.espncricinfo.com/story/county-news-strife-at-essex-as-board-calls-fo

This bit at the end rings alarm bells re Cook:

His return is understood to be resisted by club stalwarts such as Graham Gooch, David Acfield and Keith Fletcher. A report in the Daily Mail also suggested that Sir Alastair Cook, who is out of contract at the club at the end of this season, may be reluctant to sign a new deal if Irani's influence at the club is increased.


Yes, that is worrying re: Cook.

I think the drinking angle is clearly a little dramatic as form hasn't been too bad this season.

I was on the Essex Cricket Golf Day a few weeks ago and they were driving around giving out free beers on the course, the pints were being knocked back in the bar after too but nothing silly or anything I'd deem irresponsible. They've shown they're far too good for Div 2 and I hope for a return to the old two league format next season - not sure what the ECB have planned though.
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Anyone fancy a day watching Essex at the cricket today on 15:14 - Sep 22 with 1348 viewsSharkey

Anyone fancy a day watching Essex at the cricket today on 12:39 - Sep 22 by SWGF

How should they re-evaluate priorities, so they don't win so easily/quickly?

Let Alistair Cook open the bowling?

Their issue was not winning many of their first four or five Championship games back in April.


I realise your question is a serious one about how to actually make the games longer, given the players that Essex have at their disposal. I guess the usual answer would be to make the wickets less bowler-friendly. I'm not expert enough to know how easy that is to do at Chelmsford, but I should have thought it's possible.

Harmer is of course exceptional, and he is really what has changed things. People talk about out strong seam attack, but it's not stronger than say Lever, Foster, Pringle, and games were not routinely over in two days then. Part of this was because those people regularly got called up for England, and Porter and Sam Cook are very good but not good enough for England, and Harmer too is available full-time. So actually the best hope of Essex's games getting longer is (somewhat ironically) for Sam Cook to improve... and thereby get into the England set-up.

It's not what you asked, but personally, I wouldn't care as much about winning. I know I'm probably in a minority in that, but I'd repeat the classic hypothetical question:

If Essex needed X points to win the Championship and a draw would guarantee them X+1 points, would you be happy that it rained for four days?

There seem to be so many supporters for whom the answer would be be yes. Put simply, they like Essex more than they like cricket. I'd like more balance. (When I hear one of the reasons given for dropping Colchester is that we're not as certain we'd get a win there, I really hope it's just misinformation, because I think it'd be a grotesque reason.)

Anyway, I don't really see how things can go along like they are. People (like me) book travel and accommodation to go to games and then they're pretty much over before you even arrive if you can't go on the first day. Professional cricketers play very little first-class cricket anyway, and in Essex it seems to be getting less and less. I tend to agree with the radio commentators that we need to go back to three-day games and thereby have more fixtures. Yes, a few more games would be draws because of the weather, but if you could get two or three more first-class games in the product would overall be better.
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Anyone fancy a day watching Essex at the cricket today on 15:36 - Sep 22 with 1318 viewsSaleAway

Anyone fancy a day watching Essex at the cricket today on 15:14 - Sep 22 by Sharkey

I realise your question is a serious one about how to actually make the games longer, given the players that Essex have at their disposal. I guess the usual answer would be to make the wickets less bowler-friendly. I'm not expert enough to know how easy that is to do at Chelmsford, but I should have thought it's possible.

Harmer is of course exceptional, and he is really what has changed things. People talk about out strong seam attack, but it's not stronger than say Lever, Foster, Pringle, and games were not routinely over in two days then. Part of this was because those people regularly got called up for England, and Porter and Sam Cook are very good but not good enough for England, and Harmer too is available full-time. So actually the best hope of Essex's games getting longer is (somewhat ironically) for Sam Cook to improve... and thereby get into the England set-up.

It's not what you asked, but personally, I wouldn't care as much about winning. I know I'm probably in a minority in that, but I'd repeat the classic hypothetical question:

If Essex needed X points to win the Championship and a draw would guarantee them X+1 points, would you be happy that it rained for four days?

There seem to be so many supporters for whom the answer would be be yes. Put simply, they like Essex more than they like cricket. I'd like more balance. (When I hear one of the reasons given for dropping Colchester is that we're not as certain we'd get a win there, I really hope it's just misinformation, because I think it'd be a grotesque reason.)

Anyway, I don't really see how things can go along like they are. People (like me) book travel and accommodation to go to games and then they're pretty much over before you even arrive if you can't go on the first day. Professional cricketers play very little first-class cricket anyway, and in Essex it seems to be getting less and less. I tend to agree with the radio commentators that we need to go back to three-day games and thereby have more fixtures. Yes, a few more games would be draws because of the weather, but if you could get two or three more first-class games in the product would overall be better.


I have a simple answer to making first class games longer...

play them in the summer.

This year, we've basically played the whole first class season in spring and autumn. Between June 7th and August 30th, Essex played 1 First class match. That is ridiculous, and you can see from the nationwide number of stupidly low scores, that its not a sustainable model.

I know there was an argument about asking players to switch between first class and t20 modes, but essentially, the blocks of FC/t20/50ov/FC basically showed that no one cares about the 4 day game.

Its not up to Essex to solve that, its up to the ECB to create a sensible schedule.

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Anyone fancy a day watching Essex at the cricket today on 16:23 - Sep 22 with 1274 viewsgainsboroughblue

I bet there's not been too many occasions where a side posting 170 or thereabouts has won by an innings. There does seem to be an issue in the first class game in England, whereby batting conditions or indeed standards, are at their lowest ebb. Nobody previously not on the radar has pushed any further forward to be considered for the winter tours.

I'm sure the scheduling doesn't help but I'm not sure that fully explains things away. In the example of Northants, there must have been an element of being not bothered. The game had nothing on it for them and it is the same for all the other counties, bar the six who qualified for the top group and this was one of the reasons I was against this conference style league system this year. Once the earlier round games were done, most teams seasons effectively, were over.


On the subject of Essex, I do wonder if somebody like Cook or Porter are actually on the minds of selectors as a'horses for courses' pick in the seam attack for tests in this country. They would probably get flayed in Aus but I could see them causing problems here.

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Anyone fancy a day watching Essex at the cricket today on 18:28 - Sep 22 with 1188 viewsIpswichKnight

The out grounds were dropped as Essex couldn’t guarantee the quality off the pitches as they were run by the council and wouldn’t let Essex take control, also the cost of infrastructure moving seats, scoreboards etc around wasn’t cheap and just plain cheaper to play all the games at Chelmsford and keep the money for Essex cricket.

That said they did look at hiring the London stadium for a T20 game but London stadium didn’t think they would fill it and weren’t keen to progress ( I say it would be rammed and the corporates would lap that up within spitting distance of the city and Canary Wharf as well as Essex large fan base in East London! ), also rumours that $urrrey and Middlesex were less than happy to have a 3rd county pitch up in London.

Can also recommend all the overs podcast if you want to listen to a cricket podcast about Essex.

Believe it’s still going to be 3 conferences next year to decide Division 1/2/3 with Div 1 also contesting the Bob Willis trophy.
[Post edited 22 Sep 2021 18:29]
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Anyone fancy a day watching Essex at the cricket today on 19:07 - Sep 22 with 1139 viewsSharkey

Anyone fancy a day watching Essex at the cricket today on 18:28 - Sep 22 by IpswichKnight

The out grounds were dropped as Essex couldn’t guarantee the quality off the pitches as they were run by the council and wouldn’t let Essex take control, also the cost of infrastructure moving seats, scoreboards etc around wasn’t cheap and just plain cheaper to play all the games at Chelmsford and keep the money for Essex cricket.

That said they did look at hiring the London stadium for a T20 game but London stadium didn’t think they would fill it and weren’t keen to progress ( I say it would be rammed and the corporates would lap that up within spitting distance of the city and Canary Wharf as well as Essex large fan base in East London! ), also rumours that $urrrey and Middlesex were less than happy to have a 3rd county pitch up in London.

Can also recommend all the overs podcast if you want to listen to a cricket podcast about Essex.

Believe it’s still going to be 3 conferences next year to decide Division 1/2/3 with Div 1 also contesting the Bob Willis trophy.
[Post edited 22 Sep 2021 18:29]


Of course it’s cheaper in the short term to play all games at Chelmsford . But how many of the current membership were first taken to cricket at Colchester and Southend etc. as kids, and have been lifelong supporters because of that? When Essex played at Colchester you’d see plenty of teenagers and kids. The club is borrowing from its future.

But what I’m genuinely curious to know is are you saying that someone at the council (Essex county council or Colchester borough council) objects to Essex CCC sending their groundsman up to keep an eye on the Colchester wicket, ( incidentally just voted the best in the county by the county’s clubs). I’ve heard this before, but why on earth would they care? I mean if Colchester Utd host an England U19 game and the FA said ‘we’re going to send the Wembley groundsman up to offer some advice’, would Colchester Utd mind? It’s free expertise, so I don’t get it. (As I say, I’ve heard it before , but not the reasoning, so I’m curious.
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Anyone fancy a day watching Essex at the cricket today on 20:19 - Sep 22 with 1070 viewsIpswichKnight

Anyone fancy a day watching Essex at the cricket today on 19:07 - Sep 22 by Sharkey

Of course it’s cheaper in the short term to play all games at Chelmsford . But how many of the current membership were first taken to cricket at Colchester and Southend etc. as kids, and have been lifelong supporters because of that? When Essex played at Colchester you’d see plenty of teenagers and kids. The club is borrowing from its future.

But what I’m genuinely curious to know is are you saying that someone at the council (Essex county council or Colchester borough council) objects to Essex CCC sending their groundsman up to keep an eye on the Colchester wicket, ( incidentally just voted the best in the county by the county’s clubs). I’ve heard this before, but why on earth would they care? I mean if Colchester Utd host an England U19 game and the FA said ‘we’re going to send the Wembley groundsman up to offer some advice’, would Colchester Utd mind? It’s free expertise, so I don’t get it. (As I say, I’ve heard it before , but not the reasoning, so I’m curious.


I guess it’s probably due to public access and having to cordon off a public area ( not sure how long and how many times ) to allow Essex access to make it playable then making sure no one goes in and ruins the pitch or playing area.

Incidentally I used to love the outgrounds as you could play on the pitch during the breaks ( and Ian Pont gave me his ice cream at Ilford once as he had to go and pad up! )
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Anyone fancy a day watching Essex at the cricket today on 22:55 - Sep 22 with 990 viewsMelford

I've come up with a plan. Don't split the County Championship into the two parts of the season when batting is hard and conditions are difficult. Looking at my scorecard from yesterday Essex played 2 home games in April, 2 in May one first week of June and that was it until first week of September. So no red ball for nearly 3 months, when the pitches and conditions are best.

Have County Championship matches run from Monday to Thursday all through the season, leaving the weekend free for white ball

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Anyone fancy a day watching Essex at the cricket today on 01:18 - Sep 23 with 926 viewsgainsboroughblue

Anyone fancy a day watching Essex at the cricket today on 22:55 - Sep 22 by Melford

I've come up with a plan. Don't split the County Championship into the two parts of the season when batting is hard and conditions are difficult. Looking at my scorecard from yesterday Essex played 2 home games in April, 2 in May one first week of June and that was it until first week of September. So no red ball for nearly 3 months, when the pitches and conditions are best.

Have County Championship matches run from Monday to Thursday all through the season, leaving the weekend free for white ball


That's far too sensible an idea to be considered.

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