This in today's Guardian (Ali Martin)
He looked absolutely cherry ripe when I saw him bowl in pre-season but a random slip in wet conditions jarred his back and a disc is now impinging on a nerve. As such, he’s due to have an injection next week and see how it pulls up. Some days he feels good to go, others less so.

Great result, made my day. Don't know who was responsible but (4 games in) looks like we made some really shrewd decisions over the winter. As for negative views of Warwickshire, seems to come with the territory - every time we've won the title in my life time it's been met with a mixture of backhanded compliments and downright whinging. Makes it all the sweeter when we come through.

Yeah I tend to agree. But don't think they will do that with Barnard on 91. One of the (many) things I'll never understand about professional cricketers.

Woakes for a bowler for me. Doesn't really matter which one as if we have good luck with injuries makes sense to rotate a bit during the April / May rush. Pretty sure they will pick Mousley; his batting at Taunton made good sense given where the game was and you can't say to players be positive but you're dropped if it goes wrong. Small point but a long term bug bear of mine, it would be good if the club did a weekly injury update - does anyone know when Norwell and Briggs might be available?

Thought we meandered from tea on day 3. Given the match position a win was unlikely but as we've seen on the last day of the last two seasons if you have a plan to win there's always a chance it might work and in this instance I couldn't see us losing. Still plenty of good individual performances and hopefully more to come.

Excellent knock by Davies. Looks like Mousley has come out to play some shots. Ah cancel that.

Not a bad first day but the early wickets followed by fight back seems to be a (frustrating) trend. On the pace point I remember Hasan Ali being "sharp" maybe not 90mph but quick enough or was I imagining things? Had a look on the Somerset Grockles forum, their view is that yesterday's no play was down to incompetence rather than precipitation. Should be some ECB sanction, losing a day's play to can't be bothered isn't acceptable.

Lot's of good comments. Red ball statistician Edmund Bayliss (see twitter) has us finishing 7th. The batting looks weaker than last year and Mark Robinson must be thinking 2022 was an off year for Davis and Yates and that one of Bethell or Mousley can develop into a 1st class number 5. That seems optimistic and Hain and Burgess are (perhaps) unlikely to excel the way they did in 2022. Briggs as the spinner is another potential weak spot, but given Surrey won the CC with no spinners last year does that matter? Seam bowling certainly looks strong picking three out of Woakes, Norwell, Rushworth, OHD & Hassan Ali should allow a bit of rotation in the early season rush although Henry B's decline is worrying and Ali not available for the end of season games. Barnard and Burgess look a solid 6&7. By my reckoning w ere playing Northants, Lancs, Notts and Hampshire just the once and that seems quite a kind fixture list. On that basis perhaps we finish 4/5?
I predict finals day in the 20/20 and out in the group stages of the 50 over.

Used to love his Far Side cartoons. Definitely an outside the box signing.

The daffodils are pushing up, spring is almost here and my review of Warwickshire's 2022 annual report and financial statements is here if you are interested.
(https://sideoncricket.blogspot.com/2023/02/warwickshire-2022-annual-report-and.html)

If you're just a bit interested, it was a very good year.

RB

Yes I was surprised by Yorkshire as they are a well supported county, but only 3k members is correct. And Notts was > 8k as recently as 2018, but has fallen since with a big drop off in 2020, a slight uptick in 2021 but not back to 2019 levels.

An interesting article. Us county members get it in the neck don't we? Watching cricket, spending money - we're ruining the game. One point, there's a line in the article "There are only around 70,000 members across 18 clubs – the exact figure is a closely guarded secret". This is piffle. County membership numbers are publicly available information and can be accessed by anybody with an internet connection. Or you could look at my blog, http://sideoncricket.blogspot.com/2022/11/county-members.html which sets it all out in a table. Cricket in England has many strengths and a few weaknesses, one of those weaknesses is lazy, ill - informed journalists. (George Dobell and one or two others are obvious exceptions, but overall standard is low.)

Per cricinfo, Pakistan have a white ball series in April - May, Hassan Ali wasn't in the Pakistan world T20 squad, but if he was recalled he'd miss that first chunk of the county season.

Hah, shows what I know, signed for all of the Blast and CC up to July. You never know how fast bowlers will work out but he did well at Lancashire last year so I'm optimistic.

Derbyshire have less than 1,000 members so I guess their powers that be thought it worthwhile upsetting them for a cut of the gate money. I'd say it was worth a try - they can always shelve after a year if it doesn't work.

He did well at Lancashire and would be good to see him sign for us. I'm a little sceptical that will happen.

Headline in The Times for a column by Elizabeth Ammon "Andrew Strauss’s proposals dead in the water after county revolt". A bit thin on definite statements (or named sources) but says we will stay at 14 games in the CC and Blast with most likely change a bit of compression of The Hundred to get a round of the CC in August.

The Dailies Mail & Telegraph both have him coming to us. Then again, it ain't necessarily so.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/cricket/article-11341571/Durhams-time-leading-wicket-taker-Chris-Rushworth-makes-surprise-switch-Warwickshire.html

The Lancashire website includes the following statement "For this reason, our preference remains to hold a Members’ Forum with a binding vote once, and only once, we have a concrete proposal emerging from the ECB-led discussions with the First-Class Counties."

So I think the board is still claiming it will ballot members on any ECB proposal. I think the issue at Lancashire is a breakdown of trust where some members simply don't believe the board will have a vote and wanted an upfront commitment to 14 CC games, plus some internal reforms.

Thanks Gerry, thanks mad.

On the members committee I checked the rules and there is no election. All new representatives have to be proposed by the member's committee and if the committee propose one member for a vacancy there is no election. The members committee does not represent the interests of the members.

I wonder if, in the circumstances, mad, it might be worth serving the notice for a general meeting? There's a long lead in time between the chief executive receiving the notice and having to call a meeting, you'd hope Stuart Cain wouldn't take advantage of that but.... Also now we have the hood up I think there's a good case for revising the rules to make it clear it is the members who control the club, not the board.