Has anyone else noticed just how little Woakes has played in the last eight months? And does anyone have an idea of how much he will play, in any format, team or country, in the coming months? I notice he has played three T20s in IPL plus two intra-England squad games, only, since last summers home internationals. I wonder if, given his slightly iffy knees, he is aiming at a career of franchise cricket from here. Was just speculating to myself given the postponement of IPL what he would do now. Given travel difficulties and quarantine, might well be the next games he is available for in the UK full stop are the NZ tests and then 100.

I just saw a report that both Woakes and Billings have left India and will be back in the UK today or tomorrow to begin 10 days of quarantine. Which, assuming he's allowed to play, would mean he'd be available against Essex on May 20th.

You'd have thought it would be in the ECB's interests to let him play. The match would finish a week before the New Zealand series, if he was selected, and he'd get some red ball cricket in. As they won't be in bubbles this summer, I'm assuming players could return to their counties too unlike last year.

I do also wonder if he's slipped down the red ball pecking order for England, and Warwickshire might have him during the test series. Archer, Anderson, Broad will all start if they're fit which it seems they will be. Then Curran was preferred to Woakes over the winter, plus you've now got Robinson at Sussex who was in the squad last summer, he's getting a lot of wickets again with the England coaches watching him twice this season already, so it's tight for the 4th seamers spot.

Woakes batting at 6 for us would really help the balance of the side, even if he didn't bowl many overs.

Having his batting and doing the 4th seamer role for us would really strengthen the side.

What seems really daft is that he won't be able to leave his hotel to train or compete during quarantine, which he would be allowed to do if he was going to play in the T20 Blast or if he was competing in other sports events like the World Ping Pong Championships.

For various, logical reasons, the ECB chose not to have the championship designated as Elite Sport.
Several non-league football competitions did that and found the costs involved onerous and of no real advantage.

If the England Test team was picked on merit at the end of last summer, he was in it. The winter has been damaging. Aware of the oddities of the quarantine period and training. However, not sure this is the key issue really. Depends on how Woakes sees his career going from here. I'd hope he wanted to get some red ball for Warks ahead of making a case for the test side while only playing enough white ball to raise profile for the next franchise gig. So the hundred basically. Even after having such a sparse winter I can't see him competing on all fronts the rest of this season.

I wonder how Chris Woakes contract with Warwickshire is set up? He never seems to play many games at all for the Bears. Even when there's been opportunities particularly towards the end of the season the ECB have rested him due to Test appearances. A frustrating situation; so many formats and the IPL doesn't benefit the Bears.

I think the deal is the ECB have his contract, we get compensation and he is in effect loaned back to us when England need. Which means he's essentially using Warwickshire to fine-tune for internationals. Willing to be corrected as I'm not sure I've quite got it.

I can live with that so long as it is England internationals. IPL I'm suspect about though I recognise one or two stints per career gives the player something new to learn. Who wouldn't want that over a short career?

What I worry about is if our players end up missing games for us ( ie looseners for internationals) while playing something like, and no disrespect to, the Pakistan Premier League. I fear Woakes might be going in this direction if he does slip out of the England Test squad - which in this case I think isn't his fault.

white-lightning wrote:

I wonder how Chris Woakes contract with Warwickshire is set up? He never seems to play many games at all for the Bears. Even when there's been opportunities particularly towards the end of the season the ECB have rested him due to Test appearances. A frustrating situation; so many formats and the IPL doesn't benefit the Bears.

Glad he got out reasonably promptly. From the IPL statement it sounded like they were struggling to do that. Purely on merit I agree with you m on the test team. But they will probably rotate the whole summer which I see as Woakes, Broad and Anderson switching for each other and then the quicks Wood, Archer and Stone, doing the same. You could argue if Woakes needed this rest given he has bowled a maximum of 12 competitive over the last 8 months. BristolBear wrote:

I just saw a report that both Woakes and Billings have left India and will be back in the UK today or tomorrow to begin 10 days of quarantine. Which, assuming he's allowed to play, would mean he'd be available against Essex on May 20th.

You'd have thought it would be in the ECB's interests to let him play. The match would finish a week before the New Zealand series, if he was selected, and he'd get some red ball cricket in. As they won't be in bubbles this summer, I'm assuming players could return to their counties too unlike last year.

I do also wonder if he's slipped down the red ball pecking order for England, and Warwickshire might have him during the test series. Archer, Anderson, Broad will all start if they're fit which it seems they will be. Then Curran was preferred to Woakes over the winter, plus you've now got Robinson at Sussex who was in the squad last summer, he's getting a lot of wickets again with the England coaches watching him twice this season already, so it's tight for the 4th seamers spot.

I do hate the rotation policy. I could slightly understand it with the bubbles. 12+ months living in a bubble must have been very tough.
But then some imposed it on themselves going to the IPL.
Also, with rotation now everyone loses. England lose because they don’t get their best side, counties lose because they don’t get their best players even if they’re not playing, and the players lose because they risk losing their place to someone else even if they’ve been playing well.
The test side has very little cross over with the T20 squad so I hope it stops this summer.

Agree for all the points you make. I think it is largely the fault of the pandemic though and we will head back to normality eventually. It might well self-regulate in it is here to stay. The ECB set our crazy schedule for commercial reasons. If the coaches end up putting out weakened sides for every series, then you assume the schedule will eventually be pared back.

For comparison: Baseball has around 160-180 games in an eight month season. Games last as long as a T20 and there are usually six games a week in blocks of three. The pitchers rotate all the way through and there isn't a sense of being short changed. Just that squads build up a huge "bull pen" of high quality but complementary players.There is a point that there's only one pitcher per game so it is inherently different. But the acceptance that you will have, say, ten roughly equal quality bowlers in a squad isn't in cricket yet.

BristolBear wrote:

I do hate the rotation policy. I could slightly understand it with the bubbles. 12+ months living in a bubble must have been very tough.
But then some imposed it on themselves going to the IPL.
Also, with rotation now everyone loses. England lose because they don’t get their best side, counties lose because they don’t get their best players even if they’re not playing, and the players lose because they risk losing their place to someone else even if they’ve been playing well.
The test side has very little cross over with the T20 squad so I hope it stops this summer.

When the quarantine period is over, will Chris Woakes be allowed to play for the Bears? He's barely played since last Summer. Surely some match practice would benefit both the Bears and England?

I expect him to be available for Essex away, game 6.

Even if he was on a limited number of overs, his batting would strengthen the side. I could see him batting at 6 and bowling the overs that Bresnan & Rhodes have been sharing.

Yeah he'd be in for Bresnan.

I suspect he’d come in for one of Norwell or Stone depending on fitness and ECB orders.

Even in the last 8 years, Woakes has barely played for us and the amount of cricket he could have been involved in and missed is scandalous. He has continually been picked in Test and O.D.I. squads but been left out of matches but stayed with the squad. Then, when he does finally get a game, he has had no cricket for sometimes 3 weeks and is rusty and people then say how badly he has played. England must know who is playing from game to game yet never allow him to come back to play for us. He was once picked for a O.D.I tournament in New Zealand, did not play a single game and when the season started here, the ECB said he was to rest ahead of upcoming international games. He is still a player with loads to offer and it makes me wonder towards the end of his career, whether he will feel as though he has missed out on playing matches only to have to sit in a dressing room watching others play. Rest is a good thing IF you are playing a lot but playing games is good for fitness and rhythm but at the ECB they seem to have forgotten this.

It's being reported that the English IPL players won't be picked for the New Zealand Test series, so maybe Chris Woakes will get to play a few Bears matches.

He gets released from Hotel isolation tomorrow, so I'm sure the first he wants is a few days with his wife and children.
Ideally he'd be available for the game at New Road in about 10 days time.

Not playing tonight in the firsts Blast game again I see despite a couple of 2nd XI T20s whereas I see Mo played for the Pears yesterday. Anyone know what’s up - I thought we’d get a good few games out of him following his return and before the India series as he builds up fitness