Agree the youngsters need to come through but if you look at the seam bowling, we got rid of them instead.
3 young seamers left this off season. All that’s realistically seemingly behind them in terms of home grown youngsters is Simmons.
On the surface our seam attack of Rushworth, OHD, Norwell, Miles, Barnard, Booth and Ali as an overseas is decent. But when you look at the ages, injury history, availability or experience, then it’s concerning.
And as much as the loan system can work, you’ll never win a championship relying on loans. The best players don’t go on loan unless you’re signing them permanently next season. Squads always need adding to, to stop them overly aging or becoming stale.

It’s different in age and length, but not particularly different to the Garton signing. It’s got 1 aim in mind, and it seems a case of willing to mortgage the ability to make championship signings in order to spend the money on T20.

Time will tell.
At least there’s no problem with him being “assured his place in the team” because we all know he’s assured a place in the team no matter how he bats.

I think players moving on is a bigger factor now, and also that the selection policy is much more skewed towards bigger counties. I know during the Bayliss period and Morgans white ball captaincy, players like Phil Salt were told they preferred players at bigger counties because it meant competing to win more but also higher expectations in terms of performance. So similar quality players didn’t get the same consideration necessarily from the selectors.
I’d also be interested in viewing white ball debuts, as that’s become far more prolific in the last 20 years. And you get a lot of white ball players coming from smaller counties. Salt, Billings, Mills, Willey, Topley, Brown, David Payne, Archer, Tongue, Buttler, all started at non-test match counties, and have had or are shaping up to have good England and franchise careers.

1 final thing I’d say is we need to be careful about wishing away first class counties. Once you start, it becomes a slippery slope, and you end up with 8-10 teams called Birmingham, London, Manchester, with no history, no loyalty, and the game contracts as those in it try to make the most money for themselves without considering the wider health of the sport.

You’re right on the score. Good spot.
And he’s definitely not had a good BBL. But I do think he gets unfairly judged in tournaments, and by the ECB, mostly due to his style.
Look at Laurie Evans. Hardly the most demonstrative hitter. He builds up into his innings and look how well he has done in the BBL, Blast and Hundred. Though he again is another who’s never really been given an England shot despite outperforming the likes of Livingstone and Vince on a regular basis.

Hain never seems to get the patience lots of T20 players do. Both abroad and in the Hundred.
Compare how Hain gets treated, 1 knock after a match winning 80, to how we have persevered with Blast overseas not performing in the past, how other English players have been given the entire tournament in the Hundred. Hain gets dropped first opportunity. Whilst others have gone entire Hundred and Blast tournaments without a significant score.
Suspect it’s because of the way he plays, accumulates early and then accelerates. Rather than swinging for the ropes from ball 1. The likes of Tim David within that Hobart team seem to rarely score big but because of his reputation is seen as a huge talent wherever he plays.

Every year I’m amazed that they’re able to play cricket there.
Incredible work by their ground staff every off season.

The talk was that Woakes was behind the likes of Curran, Atkinson, Wood, Topley, Mills and Archer if fit. That definitely seems to have changed with this tour with Curran, Atkinson and Mills all struggling.
Also, there was a lot of rumour that the English players who dropped out of last years IPL might struggle to get picked up. As the Indians famously don’t like their competition being shunned. Though Woakes has just gone in the IPL auction. So got to agree, as over the course of a few days, Woakes’ positioning has changed hugely. Looks like we won’t see him at all.

Wouldn’t surprise me if asked to go. He’ll want to play all formats and that’s a chance he’ll get at Middlesex.
Just didn’t get a run of games in red ball and I think that really prevented him playing to his potential and just bowling with rhythm.
From what I’ve heard, we might be able to get Woakes a decent amount for the first half of next season. The rumour being these t20 internationals in the West Indies right now are a trial as to whether to take him to the T20 World Cup there in June.
So Henry’s opportunities would have been even more limited if Woakes didn’t make the cut.

Some of the squad decisions have been rather odd of late, this one included.
Proven players getting short term deals, fringe or unproven talents getting long ones, homegrown players shown the door for older but less experienced recruits.
I think we all know Robbo plays favourites, but some of this could really come back to bite him if he’s not careful.

Looks like Garton got out of Sussex at the right time.
The situation at Sussex right now seems a real mess.

The_Lickey_Banker wrote:

Inside-edge wrote:

https://edgbaston.com/news/class-of-24-bright-future-for-academy-prospects/

Shame, no names are mentioned, other than the 4 we know about. Another example of the Media Department falling down on the job.

But you know when they put out another post about Edgbaston still being available for Christmas party bookings, conferences or weddings, that it’ll be perfectly written, professional and all bases covered.

What I would say is that I feel a top 3 batsman might be best to be avoided as captain. Because it’s our big weakness, and in a purely performance sense, those players need to concentrate on their batting. They can provide leadership through runs and performances.

Personally I’ve never been one for bowlers as captains, can be hard to juggle the physical demands with the mental, and choosing when to bring yourself on, plus the higher potential for injuries.

So just my view that really limits it to Hain, Mousley, Barnard and Burgess. Though I suspect it won’t be one of those.

Heard about it back in the middle of summer, so not really a surprise.
Looks as though Davies will be appointed as club captain, and the coronation will be complete. Who knows, maybe the captaincy will bring the best out of him.
But can’t help but feel, this has been a process which ends with Davies as captain and keeper in all formats and it’s basically been Robinsons plan all along.

Apparently there’s a clause in there that states he’ll return for finals day if they qualify and the final championship phase in September.
Obviously requiring that at least one of those is relevant to us winning something still.

That’s where I’m worried. Signings like this, I’m assuming he wasn’t cheap, suggest a prioritisation of T20. And as such take money away from potential CC reinforcements. There’s only so much in the budget after all.

Unsurprisingly Stokes is going to have knee surgery after this World Cup. Apparently should be fit for the India tour.
But with his performances so far, you’ve got to think this was probably a hurdle to far for his body, and considering he can barely run let alone bowl, this seems inevitable and probably makes his decision to play even more questionable.

I’m going on the assumption that his record will get better when he is playing with the likes of OHD and Rushworth, and on fair contest pitches, where sides need to score against him. Rather than in a pretty poor attack on a Hove pitch that’s been flat as a pancake for the last few years. Also looking at his stats the bulk of his red ball matches have been much earlier in his career when much younger. But we will see.

Part of me wonders if a signing like this, plus Booth, might make us sign a second red ball overseas for the first part of the season.
Get a batsman and seamer. Then during or after the T20, when we typically see a changing of the overseas, Garton might fancy playing some red ball like Maxwell did last season, and we may then only need 1 overseas going forward. But from the sounds of it, Robinson isn’t expecting him to play any red ball cricket in the first part of the season.

I do wonder how much we’re paying him. Because white ball contracts now for players like him are essentially t20 blast contracts.

So assuming we get all the way to the final of the blast and he plays all 17 matches and bowls his full allocation of 4 overs in each, you’re paying for 68 overs a year. Plus him swinging the long handle with a couple of quick 30’s a year.
So I do hope the pay matches that, as too many top players who give everything in all formats are getting 1 year deals and fighting for extensions whilst we see the likes of Booth and Garton getting handed 3 years.