Bald_Reynard wrote:
Intriguingly one ex-bear, who has been touted as a possible new Head Coach (you all know who)! I think someone on here speculated that his international and South African work (in a lovely southern hemisphere summer) might mean he wouldn't fancy an Edgbaston return. Well ........ ?!

If they could convince him then that would be a huge achievement. I wrote him off simply because my logic would be, why earn half as much for twice the work, in less enjoyable weather conditions.
Would say quite a bit about his work ethic, how he views championship cricket and his views on the club if he did decide to come.

I think that’s going to be a huge loss. A very popular member of the team and one of the most reliable players too.

Got to hand it to him, it’s brave to take a step into the unknown like that. Reminds me a bit of Fabian Cowdrey a few years ago, an excellent county pro, retiring young and deciding he wanted to work outside the game.

Trott only signed this summer to be the coach of one of the South African IPL franchises.
Paid more for a months work there than a year in county cricket. Plus he’s “home” and the weather is nicer.
Think he’s off the table for a couple of years unless a major test playing nation game in for him. Likely only England, New Zealand or South Africa.

I rate Jacob very highly; and at only 21 he’ll get better and better.
But this seems a very odd pick, definitely based on potential and T20 form.
Yet to score a first class hundred, averaging 25 after 20 matches in red ball.
I can think of plenty within Warwickshire alone who were better this year in the CC. But that’s not what earns selection anymore.

Really liked this interview.
His point on whether the captaincy affects you and he answered “I don’t really know”, Is a really honest answer, and his elaboration is great. How his mindset did differ at times, but also he just wanted to bat, carry out the work he’d done in the winter.
Think the interesting point will be next year or the year after, as we’ve seen for clubs and countries with players like Rhodes, Root, Abell, Kohli, Cook. As Davies says, it’s the extra duties you never realised were needed, the extra conversations, the endless concentration, personal and team pressure, that gets to players in the end.

Plus the dog point is excellent, great PR move.

I think with T20 what we have to remember is players change. It’s a lot easier to improve in t20 because so much of it is mindset. There’s lots of ways to score runs quickly, not just smashing the ball over square leg. We see a lot of players come into their own later in careers as they learn their game better.

I mean Surrey had Sibley and Burns playing for them this year.

In Rhodes vs Benjamin. It’s a case of Rhodes had gone away and worked on his game. Got to allow players to think putting in that work is worthwhile. Who’s to say he couldn’t offer more especially as an all rounder.
And for Benjamin, he’d only gone backwards since that first season. In every format and various competition he’s played in. It always gets harder once teams have video of you, they can study you. Cricket is littered with players who had a good season or 2, but weren’t good enough once they were worked out. That’ll be his work this off season, is he good enough to overcome that or not.

Don’t disagree on Briggs being superb for T20. But by the 2026 season he’ll be 35. More and more we only play him in T20. That experience and achievement comes with a price tag. As I understand his family situation he doesn’t really want to travel much for franchise cricket. So would be against a T20 only deal, wants all formats.
Can you justify paying someone that much, when you could get an all format decent red ball spinner, plus have Bethell, Yates and Mousley for T20 spinners too. And we could have Moeen and Lintott as well still.
It’s a balance.

Just seen this online.
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1UImc-Tt_w4_w2JRuNqt933qlRpz9RdgV_C4BtAdZ6C8/edit?usp=sharing

Not sure how accurate, but looks about right to me.
We have a lot of players off contract next year. From May I believe they can start talking to other counties.
Have to re-sign, Bethell, Barnard, Burgess, Hain, OHD, Shaikh and Smith. Potentially Lintott too for white ball.
Probably time to move on from Rushworth, Briggs, and Miles.
Moeen a certainty if he’ll play red ball, as he’s internationally retired now. He’d be a huge boost. But 50/50 if he only plays T20.

Such a shame as for the other 2 formats he was wonderful for us.
I do worry how many others we’ll lose because of this. Partly because we played a very select group. Whereas looking around at other counties, they seemed to rotate more. Played maybe 16/17 players across the group stages. Whereas I’d guess we played 13/14. Gives all players a chance, and at least might give you a chance to keep a player like Rhodes, because he if plays well great if not he can’t argue that he didn’t get a chance to impress. Just strikes me as poor squad management.

But they don’t win those moments, which is our issue.
They’re the international version of Warwickshire in T20. Great stats. No trophies to show for it.

If we’re talking about a mindset to win, do we really want South Africans? In cricket, they’re the biggest example of systemic choking in the big moments.

Also, we know typically their top players are very financially motivated, I’m not sure we could compete with the money being offered by the IPL, The Hundred, or even Major League Cricket for that matter. Especially as the time the blast is played is the perfect time for them to rest before and after those tournaments, plus they’ll make more money from the SA T20, BBL, PSL and the UAE tournament.

The fact his debuts and first season were so good but went down hill afterwards, really does lean to my theory on him that teams worked out how to bowl at him and he didn’t adapt sufficiently.
Though that is a thing you’d like to think the performance analysts and batting coach would work on him with.
Also that CC hundred at Old Trafford was on a very sedate, slow pitch.
He’s a decent player, but wasn’t good enough if we want to compete at the top for all formats.
Maybe playing in Div 2 and with new coaches they can work with him on his game to develop the weaknesses he has.

GerryShedd wrote:

Any suggested names for 2025 overseas?

Neil Wagner, he was essentially pushed out the door the same way Anderson was. He would still be able to offer a lot.

If you wanted to go younger, Jordan Buckingham is a good young fast bowler in all formats from South Australia. Done very well at state level, big bash and Australia A.

Todd Murphy another from Aus, he isn’t in the Australian plans any time soon, especially whilst Lyon is around. But he bowled superbly in India as the second spinner. Plays all formats too.

Nothing surprises me with our contract offers anymore.
We seem to love offering key players 1 year deals, but underperforming, fringe or unproven players get 2 or 3 year deals.

On the overseas, it’s clear 2 things work for the championship.
Firstly, the most successful version is getting a proven domestic player (maybe a few international caps but isn’t close to a call up now). They can be there for an extended period, and won’t be called up internationally like Sussex did with Daniel Hughes, Surrey with Worrall, Worcs with Smith, most obviously Harmer for Essex. They play CC and T20, right until the end of the season basically. But usually have a break to have friends and family over and do tourist stuff during the ODC. That way by the time they’ve gotten used to conditions, they’re not flying home, they’re in form for months for you.
Or you get an ex international, who still has plenty to offer, like Surrey did with Sangakarra, Essex with Elgar, Sussex with Pujara, Shaw for Northants. These guys pass on so much to young players, you still hear Surrey players and coaches talk about the impact of Sangakarra.
Current prime internationals for CC are a big risk; we’ve seen it with Ali, but Lyon, Massood too this year. There’s always exceptions but those 2 options seem to be the best way to get a consistent contributing overseas.
In T20 it’s different, but if 1 of your CC overseas can play T20, you can pay more to get a higher class specialist. Which helps squad balance, because you don’t have to recruit so many domestic T20 mercenaries. And you can try and get the best available T20 overseas instead, who’ll probably have a bigger impact.
Also means you’re much more confident in the contributions of your overseas in all formats, so instead of needing to recruit 4 domestic players to cover your bases, you can recruit the best 2.

On the second division being good to develop young players, I do believe that’s true to an extent. The issue is, especially for sides like Sussex & Worcestershire, can they keep them when big sides come calling. Sussex’s problem is that they can’t, Salt, Orr, Burgess, Brown to name a few recent ones, a lot of players they’ve developed and turned into top talent go to clubs with more money. I know for a fact Salt was told if he had England aspirations that under the previous regime there was a preference for players who are content for trophies and get into crunch moments.
As for the opening partnership, as I said before the issue isn’t just that first wicket, other clubs have had the likes of Vince, Lawrence, Pope, Abell, Elgar, Sibley, Burns, Bedingham and more either at the other end or coming in preventing multiple wickets falling.
We’re a bit more fragile in that top order and often if we lose 1 we lose 3 or 4. As Hain hasn’t been about or at the same level this year, Yates and Davies are aggressive and don’t really play that role, Mousley & Bethell aren’t there yet in red ball, Rhodes can’t be a hero every time, so we can lose 3 or 4 quickly sometimes and it’s not until Barnard and Burgess you have faith that we can battle. By that stage bowlers have their tails up, still with a newish ball.
That being said, the bowling is the bigger issue, and does feed into the batting problem because often we’re on top and then we can’t finish sides off, the momentum swings, we’re out in the field far longer than we should be, and that does effect the way other teams come out against us and how we bat.
I know I sound like a broken record but it does come down to balance, of the side, the squad and the formats.

I think in terms of physical ability. Your timing, your reactions, pace for bowlers, eyesight etc that probably isn’t going to improve.

But your approach to the game, your technique, mental strength, mastering new shots/skills, the mental attitude you have, that can always be improved. Seen plenty of players make technical improvements throughout long careers.
Even things like being in the gym and getting that bit stronger and fitter.

On the manner of dismissals/batters approach. It’s interesting to note that Yates has the highest strike rate of any of the recognised batters in the averages above.
That and his up and down form, doesn’t scream of a player you’d consider a natural opener. Normally I’d wonder if a move to 4 might suit him well similar to Root early in his career, but we saw how Yates form was effected when he moved to 3 a couple of years ago.
He has so much potential, just need a top level batting coach to work with him.

It’s context. It’s valuable as to how you make decisions and analyse things.
Dismissing says far more about the person than the information.

On the opening stands.
I’ve just gone back through the scores:

0,1,6,5,26,62,5,52,106,19,29,48,15,38,3,21,18, 59,10,56,116,343,37.

That’s an average of just over 46.
Take out the ridiculous situation of the 343 stand with the kookaburra in those silly early season games, that average goes to 33.
2 (+1) hundred stands, 4 fifty stands, 6 single figure stands. 3 of those big stands are with those kookaburra early season matches. With a dukes the average is far lower.
The issue in my mind is the lack of consistency, both players run very hot and cold, having looked through the numbers too often they’re out very close together so those scores are often as much for 2 as they are for 1. So it’s always worse than just 1 wicket, and we’re often left with 2 brand new batsman facing a relatively new ball and fresh bowlers.