Our top order is really a shambles.
Rhodes seems to have found some late season form. But Yates, Davies, now Brathwaite, just so unreliable.

I think the idea behind outside investment is to allow more pro-players. Have some minor county players able to try to sign for a county. By being a professional for a year or 2. Plus funding travel etc.
Also from what I’ve heard, some of the theory behind it would be to allow counties to loan their younger players to minor counties. So the likes of Wylie or Simmons for the Bears could go play for someone like Staffordshire or Shropshire, in a competition that would theoretically be a higher standard than second XI T20’s.

Really seems to be potential here, but it’s can they work it out. Or is there just too much opposition from different stakeholders (ECB, Sky, Counties, potential investors), who all want different things and we know the counties are very much against trusting the ECB after the way the Hundred was essentially forced upon them.

Unfortunately these days at grounds like Edgbaston and the Oval, it’s not just black tarpaulins. Because county championship cricket is so regularly relegated to the extremities of the square so international matches, T20 and the hundred can have the best pitches, that we get white bed sheets too.

That makes sense to me up to a point.
I think the problem is, the counties will never abandoned the blast. You’d have to give them part ownership of their 18 teams. Which obviously isn’t something the ECB want to do.

But seems to me, what needs to happen is that the hundred and blast are amalgamated. 1 single short format competition. Think 39 teams but in 4 divisions is a great idea. Treat it like the football pyramid, you’d still have an elite league of 10 at the top. But the teams in it would be there by merit and performance. Teams always have something to play for, and it decongests the schedule.
Expands the playing pool as well, increases access to fans across the country, and you could shape it however you wanted to attract your target audience, matching women’s teams etc.

That’s twice in 2 weeks Burgess is the only recognised batsman to show some spine.

Think the pitch and the match situation played the biggest parts in the negotiations.
Both teams struggled to score on it, so that will have played a big part.
Also, Northants knew the bears were in control of the clock. We could have killed that game in the first innings to guarantee a draw, so had to be something really generous to make it impossible for Rhodes not to agree to it.

Not sure how we only got 5 wickets. Thought we bowled well for the most part.
So many balls going past the edge, some dubious leaves, countless play and misses. Always stayed on top of the run rate, just needed something to go our way.

I’m struggling to justify a membership next year due to the schedule. I’m mostly interested in red ball cricket. Enjoy the white ball too, but the T20 can be a bit too slap and giggle for me.

From what’s been reported recently both from the ECB and in the press. Looks like only 3 championship rounds from the start of June to the end of August. So there’s the potential for June, July and August to have only 1 home championship match in it. Roughly half of the championship season to be played in April and May.
I want to sit in the sun and enjoy championship cricket in the middle of the summer, not dodge the rain and cold in April.

Andy wrote:

And why do we produce so few?!

We've brought some decent homegrown batters through fairly consistently and now we seem to have some keepers and a couple of spinners. Seamers/quick bowlers though? We don't bring many through. Woakes aside who was the last academy seamer to take 100 first class wickets for Warwickshire? Naqaash Tahir? I'm potentially missing someone obvious. We've had a few with potential go by the wayside Tom Milnes, Recordo Gordon etc and it would appear Johal and Garrett are going the same way.

I’d argue it’s all positions, not just bowlers, when we compare to other counties.

Of our squad now, who’ll be there next year and play for us: Yates, Mousley, Bethell, Brookes and you could probably claim Hain as home grown. And that’s ok, but I’d expect more than 5, and of that 5 there’s one genuine top performer, 2 have done well but we’re yet to see the best of, and 2 who are talked about a lot in terms of potential but yet to meet those expectations.
For whatever reason we’re not consistently producing top talent to first team level for Warwickshire of the same quality or quantity that other counties are. Look at Surrey, Lancs, Somerset, Worcestershire, Durham.

What’s going to happen over the next couple of years with the likes of Bethell, Shaikh, Khan, Wylie, Smith, Johal, Simmons, will be interesting.

He said 3 years not 4. But yeah he said, they’re the benchmark, that’s where we want to be, the quality and depth of a squad that can handle injuries and setbacks, and there’s no short steps to that.
Then some stuff about ensuring we’re improving and having KPI’s to measure that improvement.

You could possibly argue that he was talking purely about the depth in terms of quality of players Surrey have and not about both the depth and the quality of the first XI. But it definitely seems to come across as both.

I feel he says a lot without saying anything.
The stuff about motivation, I refuse to believe the players weren’t motivated. If they weren’t motivated or can’t motivate themselves going forward then they should be dropped immediately.

A lot of it is waffle, that doesn’t address how he’s going to stop that happening again. I get it’s clearly not his way to call out players in these situations, and do it behind closed doors and that’s more than fair enough. But considering that’s happened against Middlesex, Essex and now Surrey in recent matches, would any other coach in the country not talk about bringing in someone not in the 11? If that 11 plays unchanged against Northants, even with the injuries you have to question what on earth is going on.

He talks such nonsense half the time, and the other half is a combination of cliches and excuses.

Also his point about Benjamin is ridiculous. If Benjamin hasn’t “hit a ball” since before the hundred. Why not pick Ethan Brookes, irrelevant he’s leaving. Pick the player that gives you the best chance to win. And I refuse to believe Chris Benjamin does that.

Some serious overseas recruitment needed for next year. Like almost everyone else, we need to play 2 overseas. It’s one hand behind your back otherwise. I refuse to believe budget as he claims is the reason. If Somerset, Northants, Essex etc can, no reason we can’t.

Derbyshire fans aren’t thrilled. They think he’s been treated very shabbily.
Don’t mind it for depth. But I don’t think it’s a fix for our long term top 3 issues.

I just think we need to look at who we have in that top 3 and are they good enough. Current evidence says no.
Yates is way too inconsistent. It’s famine for weeks and then 1 huge innings. I think half his runs this year came in that double century. He has the ability, but not the consistency.
Davies got a century first game then nothing, had an awful 2022, and one of the lowest averages this year. Rhodes hasn’t looked good for a couple of years either.

I’d have an overseas international number 3, similar to the way Surrey have had Sangakarra, Amla or Latham in recent years. Consistent and dependable.
Then you can pick Yates, Rhodes and Davies on form to open. And if they can’t get it done, then that’s when you give a youngster like Khan a go.

We have the talent and the ability in the middle order. They’ve all proven it to some extent. And we’ve got the likes of Bethell, Benjamin, Shaikh, Wylie & Smith behind that for depth.

The top 3 has been a huge problem all season. It’s the root of all our batting issues. It’s got to be up there as one of the weakest in the country.
Brathwaite got off a plane Saturday, so what were we expecting.
The rest of the season, Davies and Yates haven’t scored runs since the first couple of games I’m pretty sure. Both have been disappointing in red ball this season and last to differing degrees. Rhodes hasn’t looked up to it for the last 2 years either.
Inevitably Hain has done well and dug them out of trouble along with Mousley, Burgess and Barnard at different stages.
No one is asking or expecting 250 without loss every match. But those middle order players coming in at 150/2 after 40 overs would be such a difference. They’d be able to attack the bowling, have bowlers in second or third spells, an older ball.

But too often that top 3 is obliterated within the first 10 overs. So it’s 30 for 3 or 4 after 10, bowlers with a new ball, brimming with confidence in their first spells, tails up, catchers in, and our batsmen are on the back foot not playing their natural game.
And half the time Barnard and Burgess have bowled 20 overs and kept for 70+ overs and they’re back out there inside a session.
It’s set up for the middle order to fail. We need to invest in an overseas number 3 for next season.

What does Benjamin offer? Was poor in the T20, barely played and did nothing in the Hundred so didn’t play for us in the one day cup, when he does play red ball, he inevitably fails. Think I’ve seen him get one red ball score and it was a slow, flat, threatless old Trafford pitch that everyone scored runs on.
I know he’s leaving but would much rather Ethan Brookes played.

Good mornings work so far.

Surrey go from 343-4 to 396 all out.
Barnard has looked like a different player since the One Day Cup started. Excellent performance by him.

I suspect on the winning the toss and bowling front, Rhodes and Robinson probably thought it looked a good batting deck, that will only get better, but we need to force a win. The best way to do that is bowl them out cheaply, and the most likely time to do that is the first day, when the pitch is probably at its most helpful.

Looking at that Surrey batting, they bat long, and we probably thought even if we post 500+ and they get out cheaply first innings, they have enough in terms of batting and we don’t have the firepower in the bowling (as we saw at Notts) to get them out following on. I also wonder if they thought the batting was strong enough to post 500+ batting first against Roach, Worrall, Overton and Lawes.

paulbear wrote:

Strange to win the toss and bowl at The Oval. We will see if it has been a good decision. We did alright here last year, up to the point when the umpires decided to get it over with and move the game on and give us a few 'Shockers'.

Ahhh yes the Hain and Burgess dismissals. When you can remember the decision, you know it’s an absolute shocker.

Just hoping Roach doesn’t once again tear through us.
In white ball must wins we’ve been awful recently, but in the last couple of years we’ve been rather good at them in red ball. If we stand any chance it’s 4 must wins now.