Blast Tactical Round-Up
Six matches across the last two days in the Blast, and the league tables continue to take shape with most teams having now played four or more matches.
The teams which I highlighted in my last tactical discussion on the Blast have generally failed to adopt the strategic recommendations that I mentioned, and several Blast analysts have got in touch with me to say that they completely agree with everything I said, but their coaches don’t listen.
It does, again, show the competitive advantage possible with strong strategic leadership from the management group.
However, Northants don’t fall into this category, and are the runaway leaders in the North Group with six wins from six so far in the tournament. They’ll probably need to win two more from eight to qualify, and likely four (but possibly three given the congested nature of the table) for a home quarter-final.
The Steelbacks edged past Warwickshire by ten runs on Wednesday night, and while their line-up does have several question marks in terms of historical data and skillsets, I’ve been impressed with their tactical flexibility. Their pacers have been a major driving factor in their success as well.
Warwickshire continue to puzzle me to an extent. I have no issue with the left/left combo for this match given the lack of off-spin options for Northants, and it was great to see Dan Mousley hit a career-best 68(42) as one of those left-handers. However, I’m less convinced by several other strategies, such as Kai Smith’s spot in the team as a non-bowling, non-keeping number eight, and their on/off usage of George Garton as a frontline bowling option.
I can kind of understand Danny Briggs bowling only two overs given left-handers Dave Willey and Saif Zaib were batting in the Northants middle order, but it was always a left-right combo with Justin Broad or Matthew Breetzke as right-handers. Perhaps a bit of overthinking there from the Warwickshire think-tank, who are now two wins from five and will need 6+ wins from nine matches to qualify.
It was good to see Freddie McCann given his chance by Notts in their narrow loss against Yorkshire, and the young prospect underlined his potential with 31(18). Given that Joe Clarke scored 50(29) and Daniel Sams 20(9), this trio scored 101(56), and the rest of the Notts team scored just 55 from 64 balls, with ten extras.
If I was Notts, I’d be looking at a batter with more boundary options than Matthew Montgomery at six. I understand their liking to use him as a match-up option, but I wonder whether they could get away with McCann’s off-spin for that, and then pick a more explosive hitter at six. Could they play on used pitches at home and pick Farhan Ahmed to replace Conor McKerr? Potentially worth considering.
The last match on Wednesday night saw the teams batting first go three from three as Durham got the better of Derbyshire.
Despite their win, I must admit that I’m hugely confused at Durham’s continual usage of Alex Lees as opener and captain, both when you consider his numbers across the last two seasons, (striking at 114, and hitting at just over 12% boundaries, with around 19 balls per dismissal), but also because Ben McKinney needs to play now that his stint with England Lions has finished (again, England Lions picking non centrally-contracted players needed by Blast teams seems utterly bizarre).
They also continue to play ‘all-rounder batting order bingo’ with Ben Raine batting at nine after batting five recently, and Kasey Aldridge looking very high at number six, and Will Rhodes as a non-bowling number seven.
Derbyshire’s batting hasn’t fired as a collective unit much in the tournament, but they do retain a fairly dangerous top five. I just remain very unconvinced about their pace bowling.
On Thursday night, Essex continued their miserable campaign with their fifth defeat in five, and are rooted to the bottom of the South Group after a comfortable loss to Glamorgan, who look like a unit performing admirably greater than the sum of their parts.
Glamorgan seem to have a collective high intent mentality, playing extremely positive cricket, and have been able to continually hit throughout innings. Their bowling looks like it could be exposed against high-level opposition, but against an Essex team in disarray, it wasn’t the night for that.
I was surprised to see Shane Snater and Simon Harmer open the bowling for Essex, as opposed to Mohammad Amir and Sam Cook - while Cook hasn’t taken many wickets opening the bowling, he hasn’t gone for big runs (economy below seven when opening at one end in each of 2022, 2023 and 2024).
Essex look like the classic example of a team trying different things to ‘make things happen’, which doesn’t tend to be a strategy aligned with success. Consistency in role clarity and selection generally makes a lot more sense.
Without checking, Middlesex must have the record for 200+ scores conceded in recent years of the Blast, and I mentioned their need for two overseas bowlers, as opposed to Kane Williamson, in last week’s tactical discussion.
This time they shipped 235 to Somerset, who chased Middlesex’s 229 with four balls to spare, after some brutal hitting from Sean Dickson and Lewis Gregory. Their batting isn’t a problem, although Joe Cracknell must continue to wonder what he needs to do in the second XI to feature for the first team. Could he keep ahead of Jack Davies?
Finally, my former team Kent were on the wrong end of a last-ball defeat at the Oval, where Surrey’s Chris Jordan found the gap for four in dramatic scenes. Kent’s overseas bowlers will need to do a lot of heavy lifting if they are to have a good season, and Wes Agar and Tom Rogers combined for 4-46 from their eight overs here.
Kent’s batting order continues to confuse me, although I’m pleased that they appear to have shelved the bizarre Tom Rogers at five experiment, despite their lack of left-handers.
This lack of LHBs has been a long-term problem for the county, with Mitch Santner (2-24 from 4) bowling as much of a locked four overs as it probably gets, as he did at Canterbury in the reverse fixture last week (3-28 from 4). Against left-arm orthodox in the tournament so far, Kent have lost eight wickets in five matches, more than any other team, with a strike rate below 120 as well. Lewis Goldsworthy on Sunday, and Tom Smith, next Wednesday, will be eagerly awaiting their chance to bowl at the Kent right-handers.
Also, if Harry Finch is going to play, he needs to open, where he can get maximum value for his shots. Given the absences of Zak Crawley and Chris Benjamin, I’d have really liked to see them be brave and give Ben Dawkins a chance, who looks like being a young batter with a high ceiling.
Surrey have strategic question marks too, but when you have such a strong squad, they can usually get away with them, at least in the group stages.
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