Hi everyone!
Some thoughts from up in the
Deckchairs
at Hove Actually
on
The first Home game of Season 2025 🏏
Sussex’s first home game in Division 1 since way back in 2015.
Up in the Deckchairs at the Cromwell Road end there was plenty of chat about what the Season might bring for the Mighty Sussex …
In the modern age, time – methinks - for Data Analytics!!
One ol’ boy even got his slide rule out.
Lies, Damn Lies … he declaimed!
I’ve spent half a century & more in professional life on the dreaded KPIs (Key Performance Indicators).
In the end … there is only one KPI that
really matters.
But which one?
Please enjoy:
Lies, Damn Lies and … Statistics
Ever since the end of Season 2024 - when Sussex were promoted as Division 2 Champions to Division 1 - I’d been looking forward to the first Home game of Season 2025.
On Day 1 I took my seat a few minutes before the Start of Play at 11.00 hours.
Somerset were the visitors, just as they had been in Sussex’s last home in Division 1 in mid-September 2015, prior to Sussex’s relegation to Division 2 for 9 long years.
Looking at the Sussex XI in the 2015 game, there were
plenty of #SussexLegends. Including:
Captain Ed Joyce, best friends in cricket Chris
Nash & Luke Wright and Chris Jordan.
Only two of the XI are still playing First Class cricket: Ben Brown, who is now Hampshire captain, and Luke Wells, who plays for Lancashire.
A decade on & the Sussex XI of 2024 also has plenty
of #SussexLegends. Including:
Captain & Wicketkeeper John
Simpson, who joined Sussex from Middlesex for the start of Season 2024. An inspired
signing; the best since … well, Mustaq Ahmed, who during his time with Sussex, was
the leading wicket-taker in the County Championship for five successive
seasons, and helped the county win the competition for the first time.
A couple of good overseas players
in Daniel Hughes from Australia and Jayden Seales from the West Indies.
And a handful of players who have developed through the Sussex Pathway: The Toms – Haines & Clark, Jack Carson, James Coles and Fynn Hudson-Prentice.
I’ve long had a soft spot for Fynn, who began his
Sussex career playing Softball Cricket on the Outfield with his Mum. Just as I
did all those years ago with Dad.
Sadly: I haven’t gone on the play for the First XI.
Well… not yet !!
Tea on Day 1
No Ollie Robinson, who had a foot injury.
His replacement was Sean Hunt, a left arm quickie who joined Sussex from Surrey in 2021.
Word quickly spread that Somerset had rested the England
allrounder Craig Overton. The Times reported:
"Craig Overton has been rested by Somerset for upcoming battles against [ the three leading Counties] Hampshire, Surrey and Essex"
I remember thinking of what that great German cricket lover Field Marshal Helmuth von Moltke the Elder said …
---
Looking back over the game, the Key Session was the morning on Day 1.
The first Sussex wicket fell in the sixth over with the
score on 24: Tom Haines bowled by Somerset captain Lewis Gregory.
A few Seasons ago there might well have been a Sussex collapse, with Lunch taken at 80 for 5 – or even worse!
But under coach Paul Farbrace, these days Sussex are made of much sterner stuff. The second wicket didn’t fall until after Lunch, with Sussex on 127.
There was a bit of a middle order collapse, with 127 for 2 becoming 180 for 7.
But the last two wickets took Sussex from 233 for 8 to 294 all out. A respectable score!
When Somerset batted, they lost wickets regularly, with
only one significant partnership: 112 by wicketkeeper James Rew and Lewis Gregory for the
eighth wicket.
A total of 201 all out left Somerset 93 behind Sussex.
Sean Hunt took 5 for 48, a maiden fifer, and Fynn Hudson-Prentice 4 for 31.
Sussex’s 2nd Innings was a run fest. Centuries from Tom Haines and John Simpson helped Sussex to a mammoth 501 for 7 declared.
Set an unlikely 595 to win, Somerset did make a fight
of it into the last session of Day 4.
But all out for 334 gave a Sussex victory by 260 runs.
There were 4 wickets for Sean Hunt (notwithstanding an injury to his bowling arm which meant he couldn’t bowl on the final day) and 3 wickets for Jayden Seales.
---
It was the first home victory in Division 1 since the
game v Warwickshire in May 2015.
Who remembers me wondering -
so many times - across the Division 2 Seasons if if I’d ever live long enough to see Sussex back in Division 1,
never mind winning a game …
So, after two rounds of the Championship, Sussex are on
35 points, level on top with Warwickshire and Nottinghamshire.
---
And what of the only one KPI that really matters?
Up in the Deckchairs indeed there was plenty of chat about what the Season might bring for the Mighty Sussex …
I was reminded of what Rowan Foster,
latterly Carroll Professor of Irish History at Oxford, wrote:
History is not about manifest
destinies, but unexpected and unforeseen futures.
All those who believe they can
anticipate and shape events, beware.
The most illuminating history is
often written to show how people acted in the expectation of a future that
never happened.
Even the most passionate of Sussex fans probably didn’t anticipate that after two rounds of the Championship that Sussex would be level on points at the top of the table!
And as for the KPI, well …
This is my 66th Season Up in the Deckchairs.
My first game was on Saturday 7th May 1960: versus Yorkshire
Young Jim bowled Fred Trueman for 1.
I must have looked at the scorecard on Cricinfo a million times. I’m still hoping Jim scored a 100 that Saturday now long, long ago !!!!
Of course, like Jim Parks I always want to be Young (Jim).
As POTUS Bill Clinton said:
When our Memories outweigh our Dreams, we have grown Old
And so for me - in the end – there is only one KPI that really matters.
Dreams & Memories Ratio = Years To Go / Years Gone
I’ll leave You to estimate yours…
And in terms of My Dreams.
Just in case you’ve forgotten… Top of My Bucket List is:
2039
·
Turn 87
· Attend the Lunch to celebrate the 200th Anniversary of the founding of Sussex County Cricket Club
---
Ahead of 2039, there’s still plenty of Season 2025 to watch.
I really hope you will come down to Hove Actually … I’ve
Saved a Deckchair for YOU!!!
After all ….
Why read a Lord Ric Cricket
Blog, when you can star in your own.
See you soon!!
Lord Ric of Beckley Furnace
Dozing up in
the Deckchairs
PS
That just leaves … Field
Marshal Helmuth von Moltke the Elder.
As Somerset lost the game and found themselves 8th
of 10 in Division 1, did they - perhaps –
regret resting Craig Overton against newly promoted Sussex ahead of the games
against their fellow members of the so-calledTop Four in Division 1: Hampshire,
Surrey and Essex ?
As the Field Marshal said:
No plan survives
contact with the enemy !
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