Bum Phillips was a very good coach, one of the best of his generation, his son, Wade Phillips, was one of the best specialist defence coaches ever, and is still working in his mid 70's and the grandson is also a good coach at NFL level.

From the Guardian today https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2024/oct/03/chris-woakes-interview-england-test-cricket-pakistan

He's consistantly performing well for Ireland, and doesn't miss many games, both of which are rare for our recent overseas players.

Both are included in the squad for the "White ball" trip to the West Indies.

One possible option as an "Overseas" player, for part of next season would be Mark Adair, who is the leading all rounder for his country, and is a British citizen.

Strange that a British citizen has to be classed as an "overseas" player, but non brits were not classified as overseas.

We can but hope!

At least South African teams & players get to the big moments.
Do we really want more players that either come here and don't try, that sign a long term contract then go home after a single game, or who arrive with a pre existing injury that they have not disclosed?

HaHa, actually he wasn't.

He did not deserve the hatred he received from some here.

It is accepted in American sports leagues that the play off stages of a competiton rquire a different mentality and approach to the game. In both T20 and 50 over competitions we have tended to get a lot of wins in the early group games, but fade going into the knock out stages. Peaking too early tends not to bring overall success in the end.

Taz Ali is potentially very good, but he is still a long way away from been a regular in the first class game. He still needs to improve in all aspects of his game.

I wonder if Quinton De Kock could be tempted to play a season of county cricket, he would significantly improve the top of the order, and is a woprld class keeper, so would strengthen the team there in T20 games too.

If available the tall South African left arm all rounder, Marco Jansen??

Seriously though, the club needs to follow the example of Worcestershire and do their research over the winter, it worked with Worcs getting Nathan Smith for most of the season and Jason Holder, who while not scoring many runs, was a tremendous positive influence while he was at the club.

What we should not be doing is limiting our recruitment to a single agent, or acting as a warm up camp for the BCCI or PCB.

Worcestershire have permanantly retired Josh's shirt number, will be displaying a framed shirt in the members bar and have attached his locker plaque to a bench in the players nets area, as well as giving both his parents a life membership.

All are wonderful gestures, and a sign of a management that understands the game and people.

Hopefully he gets the opportunity to play in all forms of the game, and succeed, at Kent.

That is really sad news, Brian Hain was a great guy.

It would be very risky to assume that sheikh, Wylie and Kai Smith all develop into solid first team players to contribute all through next season.
Likewise relying on Rushworth and Hassan Ali would seem to be wasted investment of budget, based on their lack of a contribution, and consistant failure to be available this season.
If Michael Rae was available as a UK qualified player, he would be a good signing, otherwise the club needs to do extensive research to find bowlers who are available for the full season and have a fitness record that shows they are capable of playing every game.
We can not afford another season where funds are wasted on non-playing overseas players.

As this encompasses all forms of the game, it is probably better to start a new thread for the topic.

I'll start with a question, with the increased concentration on Womens cricket, how has that affected the time spent and the budget allocated to the mens program?

Another relevant question is, what percentage of the playing budget was spent on T20 only players, and who decided that was the best use of those limited resources?

Finally, for now, who made the final decision of the overseas players signed, & what other options were considered? Did the club look at the whole market or just accept suggestions exclusively from a favoured agent?

Sadly a consequece of people wanting the BBC's budgets cut.
Covering cricket is expensive, covering cricket properly can be very expensive.
There were days this season when there was no representative of BB WM or CWR on the comentary. Both the local stations have good commentators on their sports staff, but with budget cuts and other demands on their time, the stations are unable to allow them to cover every day of every game. Some of the comentators this season were dreadful, in some cases with very limited knowledge of the game or the ability to provide a good commentary.

Do many players actually improve much once they are 25? In most cases somoene who has played regular first team cricket since they were 18 would probably have reached a plateau by that age. Obviously there are always rare exceptions.

Many of the dismissals this season, all through the team have been caused by bad decisions by the player concerned, that is the responsibility of the player, not the batting coach. Or are we absolving the players of all responsibility for their actions?

Hopefully the club analyses the method and context of every dismissal as that will give an insight to the context and cause of each dismissal. ie someone getting a low score because they are trying to accelerate the score to get bonus points is very different to someone leaving a straight ball, or playing a stupid shot when the situation requires occupying the crease.

Basically it needs to make use of the data available to analyse where the areas of weakness and strengths are. Commonly known as the "Moneyball" approach!

We will just have to agree to disagree.

i know the figures I published this morning for the Warwickshore players is correct, and the regular openers get out with individual scores below 20 almost 50% of the time is not a sign of the player been a good opener or it having a good opening partnership.

As much as some here seem to dislike it, we are allowed to have different opinions, and having a minority viewpoint is not wrong.

Fortunately the club had a middle order of Hain, Rhodes and Barnard to put a recovery in place in most innings.

Exiled Bear has not provided the source for his figures, which reduces their value. The figures I have quoted are from cricinfo, for the inning by innings analysis, and from Microsofts Copilot AI search engibe for the figures for all 9 counties, which are taken from cricinfo.

The fact that can not be avoided is that the two main openers both get dismissed for less than 20 almost 50% of the time.

Great to see Sam Hain complete his 100, and having a good partnership with Ed Barnard.