As the rain was coming down today, I was trying to weigh up the season so far - excellent results in two competitions but very disappointing results in the Championship.
How are we doing compared with other counties? Are there any counties doing well in all three competitions? By “doing well”, I mean having got through to the quarter finals of the Blast and being in the top half of their table in the One Day Cup and in the Championship.
The simple answer is that there is only one county out of 18 that, by the definitions above, is doing well. You can forget Surrey who are having a disastrous One Day Cup campaign. Lancashire are struggling in both the Championship and the One Day Cup; and counties of the calibre of Notts, Essex and Hampshire didn’t make it to the Blast quarters.
So we are left with Somerset, only third in their Blast group but still through to the knockout stages to defend their title and currently top (level on points with three others) in the One Day Cup and second in the Championship. The other 17 counties, including the Bears, can at best boast two out of three successes.
I accept that, for most of us, success in the Championship would count for more than in the other competitions; and that's the one where the Bears have fallen short. But taken overall, it's not such a bad picture. In fact, across all competitions, Somerset have won 15 games, exactly the same as the Bears.
By the end of the season, success or failure will be much easier to judge with titles won or lost and relegation avoided or not. But, as at today, things don't look all that bad (says Mr Glass Half Full).

Imagine where we might be if we had any fit bowlers...

Would anything less than a white ball trophy and avoiding relegation be classed as a successful season from here?

The key question is have the club and team become better over the season?
Have steps been taken to deal with the obvious areas of weakness?
What changes are been made so that any overseas players actually make a contribution on the field?
What steps are been taken to deal with the problems with the batting, especially at the top of the order?
Does the club have the right coaches and captain? Are there better options available, that would lead to better performances and results?
The key aim now is to ensure the club retains its place in D1 of the championship. Success in the white ball game would be good, but staying in D1 should be the priority.

I think this season is the perfect representation of what a few of us have been saying for some time.
The club is definitely tilted towards white ball. The depth of players in those competitions is clear to see. We have a 1 day team with 5 batsmen who would arguably be playing T20 at another county. So whilst the results in white ball have been good so far, it is definitely at the expense of the championship team.

We’re a bit thin on the ground for bowlers, which is in part due to the fact our recruitment has concentrated on white ball specialists who either aren’t effective in the red ball or who don’t play it at all. Which has left a heavy burden on the rest of the bowlers who are unfortunately for the most part an aging and injury prone group. Plus the well known overseas issues we’ve had. Which all has resulted in the number of injuries we’ve seen.

The batting is an interesting one. I think the averages are a bit misleading, not just for us but across the entire country. There’s a number of top order players who’ve got highly exaggerated averages because they scored huge runs in the first 2 rounds playing with the kookaburra on slow pitches. Other batsmen didn’t get a chance.
Apart from one absolute shocker, we’ve been less prone to collapse, and have set up winning positions the bowlers couldn’t take advantage of. We are still prone to being 40 or 50 for 3 though.
The backend of the season decides whether it’s a successful season, staying up and winning a white ball trophy can be considered success.
Just escaping relegation and not winning anything is a failure. Simply because you can’t build a team like this for 3 years and not win anything, especially when you’ve decided not to strengthen a championship winning side in order to concentrate on T20.

I've got two glasses, one of which is topped off nicely whilst the other is down to the dregs. If we win one or both of the Blast and the One Day Cup, Edgbaston Entertainment Venue could reasonably feel rather pleased with itself. If we go a whole year without winning a County Championship game, Warwickshire County CRICKET Club will have dismally failed.