The Bears/Pears/County Cricket Thread 2015

[ADVILLAFAN]

Onions seems to be trying to bore us into submission.

One more wicket to go and then about 50 runs to knock off.

[ADVILLAFAN]

63 runs to win.

[Dr Butler]

excellent

COYB
The Doc

[Villan For Life]

Keith Barker certainly likes playing against Durham. In this game he's take a 9fer and scored a ton. Hopefully he won't have to bat in the 4th innings, so well played that man!

[adrenachrome]

Bears win by 8 wickets.

[Villan For Life]

You Bears!

With the weather over the middle two days being so crap, to get a positive result is a good.

[pooligan]

Well done you Bears, excellent win over a team who came into this game in good form.

[adrenachrome]

Barker has taken 50 wickets against Durham in 3 seasons, which is remarkable.
Great result but we are picking up a lot of injuries. Chopra and Clarke looked uncomfortable after being hit and Jones had his foot in plaster last night.

[Villafirst]

Well done you bears - right in the mix for the title now.

[tomd2103]

Well done you bears - right in the mix for the title now.

Yep, been a good start.  Shame about some of the injuries that have been picked up though.

[adrenachrome]

Birmingham Mail

Birmingham Bears star Jeetan Patel is after a rapid response

Jeetan Patel believes a big home derby against Worcestershire Rapids will give Birmingham Bears the perfect opportunity to get their NatWest T20 Blast campaign up and running.

08:43, 22 May 2015 By Brian Halford

 New Zealand star Jeetan Patel believes a big home derby against Worcestershire Rapids tonight will give Birmingham Bears the perfect opportunity to get their NatWest T20 Blast campaign up and running.

The reigning champions suffered a torrid start to the defence of their title last week with a seven-wicket defeat to Notts Outlaws.

They ran into an onslaught from Alex Hales in his most destructive form, the England T20 opener hitting sixes off six successive balls on his way to a spectacular 43-ball 86 not out.

And the experienced Patel knows the Bears’ bowlers must shed the baggage of that bruising experience and simply get back to playing the cricket which took them all the way to T20 glory last year.

“We got a sub-par score at Notts and got beaten comprehensively but as long as the guys realise that the Worcestershire game is another event, a clean slate, then it will be okay,” he said.

“We certainly didn’t carry any baggage from the T20 defeat over into the championship match against Durham where we played some really good cricket. T20 is such a leveller that anyone can have their day so we just have to make sure we are on song.

“Worcestershire is always a big game for us and one you always look for on the list, whether it is in the championship or limited overs. To host them first up this year, as opposed to going there, is brilliant and to have the support of Birmingham behind us again will be great.

“The support we received from the Birmingham Bears fans last year, particularly on Finals Day, was incredible.

“We are all looking forward to the game and it is an exciting opportunity to put last Friday straight to bed and prove we can play really good Twenty20 cricket.”

Against a Rapids team making their bow in this year’s competition, Patel and his fellow bowlers will certainly aim to impose greater control than they managed last Friday when they ran into Hales’s blitz.

“There is such a lot happening in T20,” said Patel. “Every ball has something riding on it and that’s something I spoke to the bowlers about the other day, the fact that every ball is an event.

“If a guy like Hales comes in, how do you go about starving him of the strike and making it hard for him to score ? It’s those nuances of the game that are so important.”

[adrenachrome]

The Pears snatched defeat from the jaws of victory. Which was nice.

[tomd2103]

The Pears snatched defeat from the jaws of victory. Which was nice.

Eh? They had a decent start, but never looked like they were going to make that total.  From a Bears perspective, McCullum can't arrive soon enough as we are seriously lacking batting firepower in the T20 game.  With all due respect to Worcester, better sides would have blown us away like Notts did last week.

On a different note, I went to Trent Bridge last week and despite the result thought it was a much better all round event than the game at Edgbaston tonight (I'm not sure if being on SKY made any difference).  It isn't going to be for the purists, but T20 should be appealing to youngsters and the casual cricket fan.  Sitting in the Raglan Stand tonight, you could hardly hear the PA and there seemed to be little effort in terms of anything else going on.  Again, regular cricket watchers might not like that kind of stuff, but that is what T20 should be about.  Also, there was some serious daylight robbery going on in those food stalls outside.  I couldn't quite believe it when after ordering a burrito at one of the stalls, the guy said £7.00 (I couldn't see the prices listed).

Anyway, rant over.  Good to be back on track, but a lot to improve on.

[adrenachrome]

The Pears snatched defeat from the jaws of victory. Which was nice.

Eh? They had a decent start, but never looked like they were going to make that total.  From a Bears perspective, McCullum can't arrive soon enough as we are seriously lacking batting firepower in the T20 game.  With all due respect to Worcester, better sides would have blown us away like Notts did last week.

On a different note, I went to Trent Bridge last week and despite the result thought it was a much better all round event than the game at Edgbaston tonight (I'm not sure if being on SKY made any difference).  It isn't going to be for the purists, but T20 should be appealing to youngsters and the casual cricket fan.  Sitting in the Raglan Stand tonight, you could hardly hear the PA and there seemed to be little effort in terms of anything else going on.  Again, regular cricket watchers might not like that kind of stuff, but that is what T20 should be about.  Also, there was some serious daylight robbery going on in those food stalls outside.  I couldn't quite believe it when after ordering a burrito at one of the stalls, the guy said £7.00 (I couldn't see the prices listed).

Anyway, rant over.  Good to be back on track, but a lot to improve on.

I agree with your point about rip-offs outside the members' areas.

My remark was based on the fact that they should have easily won given that target on that wicket. We have an exceptional fielding side with Rikki Clarke, Will Porterfield and Laurie Evans among the best in the country, and no lame ducks whatsoever in this regard, but the only concession made for this format of the game is dropping Westwood and Barker.  We still seem to think that Chopra will play anchor and let the rest rip.

I was genuinely amazed when we won it last season.

[pooligan]

Good win against the Pears again last night. Would have been more emphatic if it was not for Chris Wright.Conceding 28 in just 2 overs put us under pressure.Wright worries me in this format of the game, he concedes far to many runs.With the likes of Gordon who i thought bowled really well, Jones and Hannon Dalby pushing for selection he must be under pressure to keep his place