It’s hardly a rumour at this stage, it’s pretty much the worst kept secret in cricket. But Leicestershire were throwing money at keepers this year. Apparently £100k a year on 3 year deals they offered Burgess, Jordan Cox, and Bracey. All 3 turned them down to stay where they were or move elsewhere. And they eventually settled for Ben Cox.
So it’s interesting he turned down a 3 year deal there, to sign one for the Bears. Fingers crossed this is more of a we’ll kick it down the road and sort something longer next year.

1 year is interesting.
There’s a few key players in various formats that come to the end of their deal in 2024.
Burgess, Rhodes, Rushworth, Henry Brookes, Yates, Briggs, Benjamin.
Think OHD is in the last year of his deal this year, need him to extend.

Some crucial negotiating to be done over the winter you’d think. Might see some high turnover if the club is trying to bring in some players, as there’s only so much money to go round.

I think football changed how it all works, especially post-Brexit. It used to always be the rule that you had to be an international.
But now they bring in teens from Portugal, Spain. Brazil etc, they have to show they’d be playing or had played at an elite level.
So now with all these franchise tournaments in cricket counting as elite, anyone that’s played in one can basically qualify.

Interestingly Surrey will be without a lot of players for various reasons.
No overseas for us, nor Woakes, Davies and Norwell.
Surrey may be without Burns and Smith due to injury and England, and definitely without Pope, Sam Curran, Jacks, Atkinson; plus Latham, Roach & Abbott have all gone home. But they’ve signed a second overseas in Sai Sudharsan to join Worrall.

The scary thing is of course even with that list of absences, they’ve still got Sibley, Foakes, Tom Curran, 2 overseas, Overton and Clark. Plus some very good up and coming players like Lawes.

I think there are some definite issues with Robinson. And away from rumours about personal interactions, I do think there’s a bigger issue in that he seems to have a lot of power.

Most clubs have a Director of Cricket to whom the first team head coach is answerable to.
That used to be the way with Farbrace and Troughton then Robinson.
In terms of First team cricket, the DoC was responsible for recruitment, contracts, and holding the coach accountable for results and long term planning.
But since it became clear Farbace was leaving, Robinson has seemingly taken on a lot of that responsibility.
He was even involved in the hiring of the new DoC, part of the interview panel. How can he choose, who is essentially his boss? It also appears the DoC role has become a lot less about first team cricket. Meaning Robinson is answering to who?
So now, Robinson seems to have total control and final say over all first team matters with much more limited input from the DoC.
I wonder if he was held accountable better, then we might not see some of the issues regarding clear favourites, bizarre selections, unmerited awards of caps or captaincies. Here’s clearly a very competent coach in terms of strategy and the technical knowledge of the game, but you wonder about his man management.
These are the sorts of issues, you expect to be questioned.
I don’t think it’s a coincidence that Robinsons best season was the season Farbrace was still very active and clearly the man with whom the buck stopped.
Because as much as we can say we’ve “improved” in white ball, we’ve made the same number of finals and finals days in all 3 of those years. And as a club of the size of Warwickshire, that’s surely how we have to judge ourselves. Or to use a football comparison, we become like Arsenal in the premier league for over a decade where being towards the top and competing but not ultimately winning was seen as a success.

As poorly as we definitely played, Barker and Dawson looked very good.
As we well know Barker with fire in his belly in overcast conditions, is a serious handful, and he passed the bat a lot. He really set the tone, he made batting difficult, which on a day like today immediately puts the dressing room on the back foot.
And then Dawson might be one of the worst bowlers to face on that pitch in those conditions. He said to the media how he played at Edgbaston on that pitch earlier in the week in the Hundred, and it turned then so he knew there’d be turn. He also knows he bowls faster than most spinners so can often extract more turn on pitches that turn. To compound that knowledge and skill, this pitch definitely turned and bounced, but not consistently which made it so hard. So the speed he bowled at, caused even more problems.
Bethell and Burgess’ dismissals were perfect examples.
The ball before Burgess got out he went back expecting bounce and turn, and it skidded on and stayed low because of Dawsons pace. He had to dig it out to avoid being bowled.
Next ball Burgess played forward to a similar ball, if anything sliding down leg, except this turns and bounces a decent amount past his outside edge and bowls him.
Bethell came down the wicket hoping to try limit the effect of that variation in bounce and turn, and got done by it gripping but this time not bouncing as much as you’d expect.
You’d hope for better from them, but at the same time I have great sympathy with them in that situation. As they’ve tried to learn the lessons of earlier but still been outdone by a bowler utilising the conditions perfectly to their advantage. So definitely a good chunk of credit to Dawson and Barker too, as well as some poor cricket from the bears.

I don’t think it’s a playing squad issue.
If you look around based on pure talent, we have a side that is up there. To me there’s 3 clear problems.
1) In the last couple of years a real mental block seems to have developed at crunch time. But we know that many of these players have performed in big moments before, and also so many different players across the 2 years and formats, so it’s not like it’s a personal issue.
It seems to be a collective thing that has emerged. Ironically the player who’s spent the least time around the squad on Norwell, had his major moment last year. And you just wonder if it’s something going on within the group as a whole.

2) Players seem to have regressed, not progressed or just not been playing. If you look at the last 2 years, Davies, Rhodes, Yates, Briggs, Norwell, Miles, Brookes, they’ve all stalled or regressed from where you’d expect them to be. You could argue Benjamin, Bethell and Ethan Brookes haven’t developed as expected either. So we’re not getting players performing to their potential.

3) We peak at the wrong time, it looks like we switch between formats really well on the surface. We started fast in both the T20 and ODC. But if you look at the championship results around that, just before the ODC a pretty poor draw against Lancs and an awful loss to Middlesex.
You look at the championship results around the start of T20 and it’s a match we managed to not get over the line against Notts and a bad loss to Essex.
So you wonder if too much thought is given to the upcoming format. We peak early in that format, the championship results drop off, and then because we’ve peaked early by the time it’s crunch time we’re on the downslope and always seem to lose.

To me all three of those problems are coaching issues. And I know I’m not the only one who’s heard the rumblings from behind the scenes about Robinson, his personality and how he seems to not be the most popular with the squad.

Heard rumblings that almost the entire changing room don’t like him as a person.
Plays favourites heavily, is quite unorganised as a bloke (players and coaches often don’t know until late the day before if they are going to be training sometimes), he was a big part of the reason Pop Welch left, he really seems to struggle to get the team to peak at the right time and his success was built on the back of a team Farbrace and Troughton built, and a bowling attack Pop kept fit and performing.

Think Lancashire fans believe they have a similar issue. A talented squad who seem to be undermined by the coaching and administration.

Must admit that was my first reaction too. Seems too convenient that they say he’s recovered from his injury, comes back in, can’t buy a run and suddenly when Hain is back, Davies is injured again.

I do think they’ve got the balance right. Everyone apart from Hain played in the group stages. Everyone but Hain, Bethell and Briggs played the majority of matches. Good blend of players who’ve been there for the whole comp and Hundred returnees. And still keeping some young players like Smith, Brookes and Bethell in there.

Hampshire it is. But that was a huge choke by Worcestershire.
Lost by 10 runs with an over and a half still to go. Lost the last 5 wickets for about 20 runs.

Mikkyk wrote:

Tayls79 wrote:

There's another aspect to the post-100 players coming back: would they improve the team? For us the opening partnership plus three can't be improved, most of the bowling can't really be improved (come back to this) even 6/7 Ethan has locked down. But our middle order could be. As it stands its Davies, Bethell and Burgess and none of them have scored too heavily. Ot must be tempting to return Hain and Mousley.

Interesting I’d have said Ethan would be the most vulnerable.
Averages less than Shaikh and Burgess I’m pretty sure.
Obviously Burgess is the keeper and has kept well, also the fact they rested him seems to suggest they intend to play him. Whereas I don’t think Brooks has bowled in this competition, so should be offering more.
He’s also leaving at the end of the season. So I’d prioritise the likes of Shaikh and Smith above him.

We know Davies isn’t going anywhere, but could see Hain back in for Bethell who’s been pretty poor in general this year.
Would love Mousley for Davies, but suspect it would more likely be for Smith.

Gloucester brought back both of their Hundred players. Lancashire brought back some of theirs too, but were far less effective.

Last year there was a rule that an overseas player had to have played in the group stages to play in the knock out rounds. They got rid of that this year.

Even though it could be a big advantage for us to have the likes of Hain, Mousley and Woakes back.
I do feel like it’s wrong. Players who were part of the hundred should had to have played in the group stages or played a minimum number of group stage games to come back.
Seems unjust and unfair otherwise.
Depending on the result in the Hundred eliminator, the likes of Hampshire could get Vince, Dawson, Howell, Whiteley, Wood, Crane, Weatherly and Wheal back for the quarter, semi and final. Thats a brand new team. Which is obviously ridiculous.

So we will be playing the winner of Hampshire vs Worcestershire.

Would love a Bears vs Pears semifinal.

GerryShedd wrote:

Well I can't comment on whatever inside information you claim to have from the dressing room. But in the Blast, Davies scored more runs than Burgess and, behind the stumps, claimed 9 victims to Burgess's 5; so I think you are being selective in your statistics.
Anyway, I'm happy to leave it at that.

I wasn’t selective, I chose average as that’s how typically players are judged. It’s why it exists. It’s the standard measure that is used.
Keepers dismissals especially in T20 are reliant on the bowlers as much as the keeper, not just their quality but how they take their wickets. I’ve not seen anyone ever suggest that Davies is a better keeper than Burgess.

And if the hill you wish to die on, is to act as if Davies hasn’t underperformed, hasn’t received preferential treatment and hasn’t been unfairly rewarded for poor performances so be it. But his treatment annoys me, and clearly others, because it’s the very antithesis of what professional sport is supposedly based on, a pure meritocracy based on performances. Also at the end of the day keeping players who aren’t performing in the side makes it harder to win.

And if it were to be based on Davies as a person. I don’t think anyone can be blamed for naturally leaning away from a player who has been banned for racist, homophobic and disability mocking tweets

It’s not a personal issue with Davies so much as I think the clear special treatment that he receives is undeserved. I think it gets a lot of backs up, and from what I’ve heard to put it lightly, it’s not gone unnoticed in the dressing room.
It’s the fact his performances are almost irrelevant, which is obviously ridiculous in professional sport.

The thing that sums it up for me is how Davies T20 performances were talked up, and I agree Davies had a decent T20 blast with the bat, but the great irony is Burgess went out on loan and averaged more than Davies, in a team that was definitely way worse. And that says something about how is underperforming yet without doubt the most secure person in the team.

I think Burgesses issue with the bat is that when he does seem to be in, it’s in situations where he doesn’t have the chance to go on. He hasn’t had the best of luck with some umpiring decisions either this year.

But when I look at what he does behind the stumps, he must save us so many runs by the catches he takes that others just wouldn’t, or by standing up to seamers and forcing batsmen to play differently.

I do worry about the Robinson and Davies love in. Seems a case of Davies can do no wrong, and he doesn’t perform. He really doesn’t seem fussed to be back.

About as good a loss as you can get.
A decent chase, almost 0 Net Run Rate damage, probably learnt a good lesson about using a 6th bowler to allow more flexibility at the death, because the last 5 overs of their innings were the difference.
Hopefully that’s the bump in the road, get back to it with a win against a poor Sussex team, and onto the semi finals.

Think it was definitely harder to bat on than first appeared.

Think Barnard was smart and benefitted from the “powerplay” in that he was able to not have to smack it and just lift it over the fielders.

The difference in the batting was that Burgess and Rhodes kept the scoreboard ticking over, and building the score. Whereas they threw their hands at everything and lost wickets or couldn’t score.

There was some appalling umpiring, about the worst overall umpiring performance I’ve seen, you know it’s bad when the commentators aren’t shying away from it. Burgess’ was probably the worst of the lot, nothing about it looked out. I suspect Burgess will get a fine as he was clearly having words with the umpire as he walked off.

But a few others on both sides were clearly very unhappy about some dubious looking decisions. Even weirder there were a couple of absolutely plumb ones like off Lintotts bowling that weren’t given.

The cameras, having a devoted commentary team, the VT packages and replays are excellent.
But my one issue is, just like the Surrey group, the absence or the dilution of the BBC commentators means the analysis and comments are very home team centric at best. The BBC commentators still have to try act impartial because of the BBC standards, not so for these types of commentators.