Andy
Member
Taz is training with the England Test squad whilst on holiday in Pakistan.
Apologies if this has already been covered but I notice Alex Davies made PCA Mens team of the year.
Bet that boiled some piss on here.
Ed Barnard was also included.
Dan Mousley and Hamza Shaikh gave been included in England Lions squad tour to South Africa next month. Training camp and one 4day match.
paulbear wrote:
Andy wrote:
Can't understand the overseas situation. Have we been massively unlucky? Maxwell was/is one of the worlds leading white ball cricketers, was so clearly the best available player to us at the time. Did we expect too much? Was he as bad as we remember? I'm not sure he was. Was fair to expect more though.
I dio
Re. Worrall. Hold on a sec, he played for Gloucestershire for 3 or 4 seasons so it's not like Surrey unearthed a gem out of nowhere. Only when he gained his British passport did Surrey pinch him. Good player though, clearly.Jeets what a player, clearly. Crucially NZ schedule was quite light for a such a long period. We did lose him to international duty on a couple of occasions, 2012 he was gone for about 6 or 7 weeks as NZ toured India and 2017 he was part of NZ's Champions Trophy squad. He also turned NZ down on a couple of occasions so as not to jeopardise his Warwickshire contracts. He was a bit more highly rated by his country than you may think. And rightly so.
We've struggled with T20 overseas players for so long. Shoaib Malik in 2014 was good for us but even he missed Finals Day for the CPL (I think?). Even Jeets, as incredible as he was, used to get caned in that format in his 2 or 3 seasons with us.
I think the only way you can guarantee player availability (fitness permitting obviously) is to engage a domestic player from SA, Aus or NZ who is largely unheralded and not really on the radar of national team selection. Even then Cricket Australia are so difficult to work with, look at Kent and the Xavier Bartlett situation, all agreed for all formats, then on the eve of the season CA pulled him out and only let him play the Blast. Nightmare.
I didn't realise that Worral played for Gloucestershire but either way, Surrey still went for him despite him not being proven so the same example applies. Maxwell, if you consider his reputation, it is as a hard hitting and fast scoring batman who can bowl decent off-spin, well his off-spin was no better than decent and his batting was not a success from what we were probably expecting, 'The Big Show', he was not. I do not recall many games where Jeetan got caned and he did play a lot more than his "2 or 3 seasons". As for his fellow-countrymen, well if he was so highly rated, they would have played him a lot more than they did, not one performance did he get in the last Champions Trophy tournament that was played in the UK.
*meant his last 2 or 3 seasons with us in the Blast when he was going at 8 or 9 or 10 an over lost games. There was no bigger fan of Jeets than me I'm just highlighting how difficult it is for players to perform well across all formats. He turned down NZ many times to play for us, good luck finding that loyalty again.
Can't understand the overseas situation. Have we been massively unlucky? Maxwell was/is one of the worlds leading white ball cricketers, was so clearly the best available player to us at the time. Did we expect too much? Was he as bad as we remember? I'm not sure he was. Was fair to expect more though.
Re. Worrall. Hold on a sec, he played for Gloucestershire for 3 or 4 seasons so it's not like Surrey unearthed a gem out of nowhere. Only when he gained his British passport did Surrey pinch him. Good player though, clearly.
Jeets what a player, clearly. Crucially NZ schedule was quite light for a such a long period. We did lose him to international duty on a couple of occasions, 2012 he was gone for about 6 or 7 weeks as NZ toured India and 2017 he was part of NZ's Champions Trophy squad. He also turned NZ down on a couple of occasions so as not to jeopardise his Warwickshire contracts. He was a bit more highly rated by his country than you may think. And rightly so.
We've struggled with T20 overseas players for so long. Shoaib Malik in 2014 was good for us but even he missed Finals Day for the CPL (I think?). Even Jeets, as incredible as he was, used to get caned in that format in his 2 or 3 seasons with us.
I think the only way you can guarantee player availability (fitness permitting obviously) is to engage a domestic player from SA, Aus or NZ who is largely unheralded and not really on the radar of national team selection. Even then Cricket Australia are so difficult to work with, look at Kent and the Xavier Bartlett situation, all agreed for all formats, then on the eve of the season CA pulled him out and only let him play the Blast. Nightmare.
We batted alright this year, keep in mind we didn't have Hain for large periods too. Yes we've had moments where we've been run through, all counties have had that though, its the nature of the game. If you compare to 2023 stats, we improved batting wise putting together more partnerships and scores. Anyone who says otherwise hasn't been following us closely enough or simply has an agenda.
The issue for us is our bowling.
mad wrote:
Ironically, avoiding relegation so often is perhaps not the best thing for counties developing young players.
Think of how Ian Bell's game was honed in the very early days of 2 division cricket. Now Sussex and this Yorkshire team coming up ought to be quite a handful now I think
Yep, fair shout. To have observed Sussex in Div 2 from afar has been fascinating, they got relegated and for years tried to almost buy their way back into the top flight, 3 or 4 seasons of bad recruitment, before abandoning that method suddenly around 2021 and really backing their youth, putting out teams made up almost entirely of u23's at one point. Looked pretty dramatic as they struggled badly for a couple of years, they stuck at it though and look at them now. Farbrace seems to have had a bit more luck with overseas recruitment down there than he did with us too, curiously. Wonder if (when!) we were to get relegated supporters would accept 2 or 3 years of struggle in Div 2 if we backed our own but then came up looking strong with a squad in good shape...
Yorkshire are always going to be there or thereabouts generally because they have a very strong pipeline of talent at pathway and academy level coming through to bolster their first XI. Look at the batters they have, almost a conveyor belt and run scorers, in Jordan Thompson they have brilliant all rounder too who can bat well at 8 and bowls decent pace in the mid 80's. Never has a bad game.
Div 1 could be strong next season, two decent sides have come up, Durham look as though they'll be a good side too, interesting times.
KingofSpain wrote:
Highveld wrote:
Do many players actually improve much once they are 25? In most cases somoene who has played regular first team cricket since they were 18 would probably have reached a plateau by that age. Obviously there are always rare exceptions.
Many of the dismissals this season, all through the team have been caused by bad decisions by the player concerned, that is the responsibility of the player, not the batting coach. Or are we absolving the players of all responsibility for their actions?
I don't think a single player has improved their game at Warwickshire since Gilo and Welch were here. Some have gone backwards. The current set of coaches are failing year after year.
Only OHD and Hain are still here from when Gilo was still here. Have they both gone backwards? This doesn't make sense.
25 year old OHD was absolutely gash. It wasn't til he turned 28 or 29 that he started to resemble anything like a proper bowler. 25 is young, particularly for a batter.
Interestingly Dean Headley was talking about this the other week and lamenting the fact that so many young cricketers are written off too quickly, particularly batters, and regarding bowlers a seamers body might not be fully strong and developed til they turn 26 or 27. But so many coaches, and supporters, make their minds up on cricketers too quickly.
The only batter of ours who I think has had a poor season is Mousley, feel like he's gone backwards in red ball. But he's young and should be given time to improve.
Ultimately players improve at different rates.
Re. Batting coach, the recently appointed Warwickshire women's coach Ali Maidan was batting coach at Yorkshire, wonder if he can help our men's team out? Yorkshire have had some decent homegrown batters recently Wharton, Hill, Bean etc some lad called Brook has made a few runs too.
Kookaburra, Dukes, favouritism, Robbo, AI etc, it's been the second best opening partnership in the division despite Yates falling off dramatically in September. End of.
Besides we've struggled this season because we've bowled absolute dross the majority of the time because we have an ageing, injury prone seam attack nothing coming through the academy to back them up. Huge issue going forwards and won't get sorted quickly, patience (something supporters don't seem to have) will be required.
We've batted decently well with room to improve even more, generally speaking.
Exiled Bear wrote:
Highveld wrote:
Our average opening partnership is one of the lowest in Division one, so improvement is needed.
It must be soul destroying for the middle order knowing they are going to be batting in the first few overs, almost, every innings.
I didn't think I could let this statement pass without a bit of evidence-checking, and the results are quite interesting...
Here are the actual average opening partnerships, in order, for all teams in Division 1:
Surrey: 53.7
Warwickshire: 46.7
Nottinghamshire: 40.3
Durham: 33.0
Essex: 28.7
Kent: 28.3
Worcestershire: 22.9
Lancashire: 19.2
Somerset: 19.0
Hampshire: 15.9So, it turns out that we actually have the second best opening partnership in Division 1!
2nd best opening partnership in Div 1 as far as I can going off these stats.
The stats seem to indicate that we have one of the better opening partnerships, no?
We've signed Tom Helm?
The commitment (desperation) by you to try and manufacture your narrative is incredible. Fair play.
Highveld wrote:
Will Rhodes completes his 1,000 championship runs for the season. Significantly, his total is not artificially inflated by easy runs in games with a Kookaburra ball.
What about his runs v Durham at home? Was it the Dukes when Rhodes was at the crease and the Kookaburra for everyone else?
Oof play that
ExiledBrummie wrote:
I agree, will feel a lot happier if Lancs bat badly. Congrats to OHD by the way on his 50th! Unfortunately my initial impressions of Booth are that he's like Miles and no better than Brookes or Garrett who we let go. Need some serious bowling upgrades next season.
Said it all season, he looks very hittable with the odd magic ball thrown in, exactly like Miles.
I'm stunned to read he was being offered a 2 year contract by us. Kai Smith does what he does and already does it better. Benjamin's continued presence would have been blocking him.
BristolBear wrote:
The_Lickey_Banker wrote:
Team:-
Yates
Davies
Rhodes
Hain
Mousley
Barnard
Burgess
Briggs
Miles
Booth
OHDAs KoS said, Robinson has done his usual 'cunning plan' in packing the batting ranks. So, a lot on the shoulders of the 3 seamers (and some aspiring 'CC spinner' called Briggs !). I think Barnard & Rhodes will be called upon a fair bit.
I can’t understand why Robinson has this approach. When we won the championship, Burgess spent most of the season at 6. Bresnan at 7. Then Briggs, Miles, Norwell, OHD.
So now when our bowling is weakest, he keeps strengthening the batting. Part of it is a comment on our consistency with the bat, partly to do with low bowling reserves. But it seems counter intuitive. And I suspect a lot to do with Robinson’s preference not to drop his favourites, as typically they’ve been the ones most vulnerable.
Well OHD didn't play after July that season so we changed it up a bit. Benjamin came in and Lamb went 6 sometimes, Bresnan sat out v Lancs and Hampshire at home. Then Benjamin sat and Brez came back. Rhodes bowled a lot more. Chemar Holder was signed. Completely different set of circumstances. We won some close games, nobody averaged above 40 but we had about 7 lads average in the 30's.
Who playing in this XI shouldn't be playing? Considering the injuries and unavailability of other players.
5 batters, 1 keeper, 1 genuine all-rounder, 4 bowlers. I know this forum loves a pile on but we cant criticise that can we?