Hello all

I'd echo Gerry's sentiment that the only way to prevent a 12 game county season with no four day cricket in July and August is to call a SGM. For that we need 250 members to sign up. I'm happy to collect names from this forum. As to what the SGM would be about I'd say, a proposal to change the club rules to prohibit the board from voting for any ECB plan to either reduce the number of days of first class cricket in a season or reduce the number of days played in June, July. If you would like to sign then I think you can message me directly from this forum by clicking on the blue "message" underneath "Reabank." I think I need names and membership number only.

Thanks Terry

So in summary, drop 2 T20 matches (no strong views on this). Plus drop the 2 four day games that currently take place in July. (which seems wrong to me). As members we should get to vote on all this. Anything about how much Warwickshire intend to cut the cost of membership to reflect the reduced number of games?

Does look like another nailed on draw. Like the Sussex and Surrey games. I can see you might want to encourage point of difference bowlers but not sure our flat pitches plus the kookaburra helps anybody very much.

Disappointed Taz Ali missed out. He's obviously got some talent and did OK in the three games he played for us in the championship. Seems we started the season with a eye to developing players for the future and then after a few games lost our nerve.

Thanks BB - that's an interesting summary. I think we need to start getting votes for a SGM - no need to hear what Stuart Cain has to say, we know all of the proposals are bad and the entirely unrepresentative members committee with a little prompting, I suspect, has gone for the worst of the bad options. One thing that caught my eye about the T20 proposals, "A continuous tournament from mid-May to July - finishing before The Hundred starts." To me that means county cricket is not only cut down in games but it's even more than now pushed to the edges of the season as the Blast is projected to start in mid - May and runs uninterrupted until the Hundred which takes up August. Annoying and disappointing.

Hi Gerry
As reasoned as ever and I certainly agree with the last statement, does anybody know whether signatures are being collected?

I'm pretty sceptical about the Sport England explanation for the rule changes. The situation we've ended up with is that the county is controlled by the board and the board is elected by the board. Other than the SGM route, which is clunky and involves coordinating 250 members out of a total membership of 3,000 there is no way for members to influence the running of Warwickshire. At Surrey by contrast every year there are elections for the board and there are always more candidates going forward than seats available. But despite this Sport England still provides funding to the ECB.
I'm basically in favour of avoiding boards consisting entirely of white middle aged men but I think this could be done in a number of ways, Warwickshire took the one that most restricted member involvement.

Of course the special general meeting route only works if 250 members sign up to request one. It's my impression that without that the club will consult members, but won't feel bound to listen to what we say.

Sad to see Danny go but you can understand why the move back and chance to do some coaching appeals to him. Excellent T20 bowler, The Bears may struggle without him and although he sometimes struggled to take wickets in first class games he was a big part of our 2021 cc win, 33 wickets at under 22.

Bit hard to see why. For the cc how does he get in the team ahead of Ed Barnard?(Ethan Brookes disease is the correct medical term). His most eye catching stat is a plus 150 T20 strike rate batting down the order which seems to be valued highly by coaches. I've seen quite a bit of him and he is quite an appealing, pugnacious cricketer. Perhaps a more switched replacement for George Garton?

I'm fairly confident Warwickshire get £0.00 from the flats. My recollection is the land was originally sold as part of the financing the redevelopment of the pavilion. Subsequent financial crash meant the construction work was delayed.

Morning everyone. Warwickshire's 2024 accounts have been published, my review and some speculation on The Hundred sale and future plans is all here (https://sideonviewcricket.substack.com/p/warwickshire-2024-accounts)

Don't know much about Brummie Beau. Just looking at the cricinfo page he could bat 5 and be a genuine all - rounder at cc division 1 level? If so then with him and Ed Barnard in the top 6 we will have lots of options. Also am I right in thinking we won't be able to play Michael Booth alongside Webster& Latham as all are overseas players?

Quite right - 7 not 8 as I had it.

Some definite good points. Bamber looks like he'll improve the squad and at 26 he'll get better in the next 3- 4 years. A younger and more homegrown (8?) side than we've put out for a long time. Seems like the approach is, where there's a debate between two players, go for the younger one, which I think makes sense. Some criticism of Booth, I didn't think much to him last year but I thought he bowled pretty well against Sussex and could have easily had 3- 4 wickets. Downsides of course. Hopefully Fernando will improve but I do wonder about short term signings. The pitch started off green but quickly died. The pitches are hampering the county side (Robinson said he thought they undermined him) and the pitch prepared for the last ashes series was widely criticised. I presume the only answer is to relay the square?

I think it shows they are thinking seriously about what skills they need and maybe there is an opportunity to be the best county at using data and the best at preventing injuries. I wish him all the best.
Looking at the structure as a whole it seems to me light on cricket experience. There's no - one on the board with top level playing experience, chairman and CEO are from rugby backgrounds and the top cricket bloke (whatever they want to call him) has never worked in cricket. That leaves Westwood as the most senior cricket person but he's just stepping up to a new role. I would have thought Matt Walker would have been a better fit at either head coach or top cricket person with Westwood and / or Thomas reporting to him.

Thanks Gerry. Maybe I'm a moaner but I find this a bit depressing. A county cricket club gets a windfall and the first thing it thinks of doing with the money is build a hotel. I mean if that's all they're going to do with money, then they have £15m coming as a share of the ECB's sale of a 49% stake in the Hundred franchises, plus a gift of a 51% stake in the Warwickshire franchise, valued at £40m. If Warwickshire sold the 51% stake they would get 80%, so £32m, giving £47m in total. There's about 4,000 members so if they split that across us, £11,750 a member. I'd rather they do that than build a hotel which isn't worth building if they have to finance it at commercial rates.

Although I was never as anti - Robinson as some (most?) of you it's probably as well to move on. What I don't understand is the order - I would have thought you appoint a director of cricket / performance and let that individual have final say on who coaches the various teams. The coaches and DOC then put the teams together , that way the people responsible make the decisions and the people making the decisions are responsible. We seem to have gone the other way, players, coaches, DOC.
Also a bit surprised Tony Frost has been moved aside. I'd say our batting is in pretty good order? Young players: Mousley, Bethell and Yates have established themselves in at least one format and Bethell and Mousley have played for England. Hamza will hopefully join them. Davies has just had his best season in first class cricket and the departed Burgess converted from a good keeper who couldn't bat well enough to make a county side to an excellent number 7. Seems good to me, perhaps the view is that Westwood was a bigger factor than Frost?
Anyway best of luck to the new appointees and looking forward to 2025 at Edgbaston.

Hello all

Hope people don't mind me borrowing this thread but I've done an analysis of the financial position of 17 of the first class counties. Warwickshire continue to climb my table and the full report is
https://sideonviewcricket.substack.com/p/bentley-forbes-rankings

Yep & Rob Yates, Warwick School.