GerryShedd
Super Moderator
If you want to depress yourself and also can get past the paywall, read the article in The Telegraph today:
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/cricket/2024/10/29/short-format-leagues-twenty20-prize-money-financial-riches/?WT.mc_id=e_DM443444&WT.tsrc=email&etype=Edi_PrS_New&utmsource=email&utm_medium=Edi_PrS_New20241030&utm_campaign=DM443444
Amongst other topics, it describes how some players sign up for franchise competitions without knowing until they arrive which team they are playing for; and how sometimes it's in a player's interests for his team to lose and not qualify for the later stages because the player is signed up for a different competition that overlaps - what the players call “double dipping”: earning from two competitions being played at the same time.
According to The Telegraph, for 2025, the ECB plan to place two rounds of Kookaburra action in the middle of the summer, and two in a similar slot in early September.
A record set at Edgbaston fell today - England's highest ever Test partnership, set in 1957 when Peter May and Colin Cowdrey added 411 together. Root and Brook went well beyond that with 454.
Someone with more time and patience than I possess has calculated who has scored the most (first class) runs and taken the most wickets at Edgbaston.
Any guesses as to the identities of the two players?
Ed Barnard declared as Player of the Tournament for the second successive year.
As in the Blast, the Bears beaten by the winners! Congratulations to Glamorgan.
What a sensible decision (for a change) for the authorities to look at the forecast and reduce the match to 20 overs a side which they just completed before the rains came down again. And well done the groundstaff!
Here's the table with just this one match to play:
https://www.espncricinfo.com/series/county-championship-division-one-2024-1410191/points-table-standings
Details of the Members Forum here:
https://edgbaston.com/news/members-attend-season-review-forum-qa/
Hardly an upbeat preview here:
https://edgbaston.com/fixtures/first-xi/warwickshire-vs-essex-tuesday-17th-september-2024/#match-match-previews
Preview here:
https://deepextracover.com/2024/08/vitality-county-championship-match-preview-warwickshire-v-kent/
We thought we had a long injury list but it looks like Kent have at least seven out through illness/injury.
What do we think the team will look like? Do we know if Sam Hain is fit?
Graham Smith previews the semis here:
https://deepextracover.com/2024/08/metro-bank-one-day-cup-semi-final-previews/
I was saddened to hear of his death last week; but made even sadder by finding out that he took his own life when he was struck by a train.
Rob Yates and Hamza Shaikh are in the squad for the match against Sri Lanka starting next Wednesday so won't be available for the match against Notts in the One Day Cup - but Notts also have two players in the squad.
https://www.ecb.co.uk/news/4078900/england-lions-name-squad-for-sri-lanka-tour-game
The Cricketer reports that counties met recently to discuss the future of live streaming. It reports:
"One of the takeaways from the meeting of the counties – attended by the majority, but not all – with general consensus that it isn't feasible, at a time where finances are limited at several counties, to not be trying to make money from a summer-long streaming service that can essentially operate as a digital season ticket. That is particularly the case where the product is a bells-and-whistles, multi-camera operation, often expensive to run and, in some situations, good enough to be carried by Sky Sports.
While the monetisation of streams is seen as a necessary inevitability in the not-too-distant future, in whatever form that takes, some counties feel more comfortable than others about the use of a paywall because of the money that has gone into production values. At other grounds, where the crux of the coverage might be little more than a couple of static cameras, that might not be the case.
There are also those who are reluctant to put their product behind a paywall for the reason that keeping their product free to view acts as a marketing tool to encourage in-person attendance at matches and retains a connection between fans and the team, while paywalling also brings questions around the use of match-clips on social media."
As the rain was coming down today, I was trying to weigh up the season so far - excellent results in two competitions but very disappointing results in the Championship.
How are we doing compared with other counties? Are there any counties doing well in all three competitions? By “doing well”, I mean having got through to the quarter finals of the Blast and being in the top half of their table in the One Day Cup and in the Championship.
The simple answer is that there is only one county out of 18 that, by the definitions above, is doing well. You can forget Surrey who are having a disastrous One Day Cup campaign. Lancashire are struggling in both the Championship and the One Day Cup; and counties of the calibre of Notts, Essex and Hampshire didn’t make it to the Blast quarters.
So we are left with Somerset, only third in their Blast group but still through to the knockout stages to defend their title and currently top (level on points with three others) in the One Day Cup and second in the Championship. The other 17 counties, including the Bears, can at best boast two out of three successes.
I accept that, for most of us, success in the Championship would count for more than in the other competitions; and that's the one where the Bears have fallen short. But taken overall, it's not such a bad picture. In fact, across all competitions, Somerset have won 15 games, exactly the same as the Bears.
By the end of the season, success or failure will be much easier to judge with titles won or lost and relegation avoided or not. But, as at today, things don't look all that bad (says Mr Glass Half Full).
Five out of five for both teams.
Graham Smith reviews here and doesn't show his Glamorgan loyalties too strongly:
https://deepextracover.com/2024/08/metro-bank-one-day-cup-group-b-match-preview-warwickshire-v-glamorgan/
I must confess to a tear in my eye as I read about the passing of Billy Ibadulla, a true Warwickshire great. And what a lovely tribute to him here from another great:
https://edgbaston.com/news/khalid-ibadulla-club-president-amiss-pays-tribute-to-bears-great-billy/
Queue here for the bus to Rugby and back:
https://tickets.edgbaston.com/resources/samp/EDG/EDG_2024_Rugby_School_Festival_Bus_Travel_NZ8atlfrOmVR9PebOlxD3iGHI%3D.html
Still awaiting squad news; but I assume our new Kiwi will be in action.
Amongst those presumably missing will be the pace bowling sextet of:
Liam Norwell
Craig Miles
Chris Rushworth
Michael Booth
(all injured)
Hasan Ali
Chris Woakes
(absent elsewhere)