mad
Member
white-lightning wrote:
Norwell still injured? That's a big worry. Is it a back problem?
Yes it's a back problem. Different area of the back to his well documented back issue last season. Probability is he's only just back bowling again after fully resting. Possibility for Essex?
Bethell also a back problem out for a wee while yet probably won't be fit for start of the Blast
That's not particularly fair. Derbyshire are one of the 18 first class counties, and give Warwickshire a decent contest whenever we play them.
Craig Miles is a county championship winner who more than pulled his weight that season. Derbyshire like all counties will have bowlers of his style coming out of their ears. Brookes offers something different but doesn't yet have the proven pedigree in first class cricket of Milo. It's a bit of punt let's hope he does well
Honesty so important. The reason we've not had any yet maybe a legacy of previous ECB regime but also counties covering themselves hedging their bets.
Play offs ideas need discarding into the bin. They are just not suitable for long form cricket. Why should members at Leicestershire for example have to put up with their season finishing perhaps 2 or 3 weeks before the members of Surrey?
Scratch that he's just joined Derbyshire on loan for the next 2 championship rounds
Agree Woakes bowled well on day 2. Probably ought to have bowled first thing on the Saturday. I can't see Norwell being ready. That being the case if rotation is needed I think (bit risky) but a time for Henry Brookes to step up for either of OHD or Rushworth. Worth seeing what the Rose Bowl surface is like too. I doubt there'll be many surprises although Barker is out injured and if they've had a few days of sunshine down there it could be a harder bouncier wicket than we've played on during April so Brookes added height could be effective
What we now need from the ECB is a bit of honesty. What is the aim? All we seem to get when we question the county CEOs is "the counties all have differing priorities'. At forums last year we saw a few barbed comments (not necessarily from Warks but a few I saw online) about smaller counties and their place in the decision process.
If the priority is to shoehorn the CC between all the other formats then I'm sorry you can't expect folks to believe they seriously think equal home and away games (the integrity of the competition) is all that much of a priority.
If the priority is a thriving CC with integrity maintained then they'd go out of their way to ensure it was 2 divisions of 9+9, 16 fixtures with 2 up 2 down like it was between 2000 and 2016. A period of relative calm to which (despite some gripes re: lack of bank holiday/weekend fixtures/absence of local derbies/too much blocking some seasons) we'd benefit from returning to pretty darn quickly
These are questions the two Richards Gould and Thompson need to square. We are led to believe that the counties are more happy with the direction of travel and yet we keep being fed these stories like the Strauss grim reaper reappearing
Absolutely Paul.
A playoff situation will attract virtually no new fans - long form cricket is still long form cricket - all it does is aggravate the existing fans (current members, lapsed members and casual supporters alike) further who want their 8 county championship games back but have been made to settle for 7
Plus unless they schedule these play offs at the very beginning of September (not sure how they could and if they did what goes in the rest of September?) when there's a decent chance of weather kindly enough to make it a) a good contest and b) a good occasion; these play-offs will be like that Bob Willis Final at Lord's the other year finishing in October - an absolute farce.
How can you decide a county champion in such ridiculous circumstances?
Also part of the 'argument' for smaller divisions instead of one big 18 team league (or two 9's which worked blooming fine till they meddled with it) is it reduces the likelihood of dead rubber matches towards the end of the season. The trouble with play off's is it removes some (although by no means all) of the dead rubber matches from the end of the season and all of a sudden you have these fairly meaningless games at the beginning of the season instead.
No need for Surrey to get off to the rollicking start they have. Teams instead can just rock up with a few new signings in August, gatecrash the play-offs and win the County flipping Championship (FFS!!!) that way
Ruination
Well we know exactly which county clubs (and which one in particular ;-)) are spoon feeding certain sections of the media this claptrap don't we!
It's all part of the big media war between the empires for cricket's soul. Sky, Torygraph, Daily Mail, Cricinfo they're all compromised in some way. There'll be loads of this all summer. Maybe the 'sacking off' of Strauss was a bit of a decoy to throw everyone off the scent
Could really do with a summer without all this nonsense too. Just to be able to enjoy what's in front of us safe in the knowledge that it'll be more or less the same in 2-3 seasons if not the next 10. Constant flux over the past 6 seasons either side of Covid has been quite tiresome. Yes we had our gripes about the schedule during the 2000's and most of the 2010's but nothing like this crap we are forced to endure now
Any reduction of the County Championship has to be a joke unless they are all going to be scheduled in June, July and August. Even then I'm not biting. Just look at this season. We've chewed up 3 of our allotment of 14 games so far this season we've had games barely limping into the 3rd day of actual play. Extrapolate that across a season if there were only 10 games that's 2 days worthwhile play to watch per game, a family fortune of 20 days cricket (across a season that currently stretches over 180 days!!!) is your job lot with only 10 at home. 2/3 of those you're on holiday or at some wedding event which leaves you with 7 or 8 days cricket for your membership. They'd have to reduce membership to about £99 to justify the up front outlay. And that's for anyone who isn't still in employment.
This type of weather is not exactly unexpected in April and in fact can set in at any time during the summer, granted not every season but let's get real this could be the case for 2-3 years in a row before we get some golden summers again.
The One Day Cup in April sounds like a disaster waiting to happen to me. The better ODI players jetting off to IPL and other random comps or being rested for England duty. It'd end up like the Graham Williamson Trophy and get axed pretty soon after it was brought in.
Also after a long and dreary winter to then be told you have to wait until mid-May for proper red ball championship cricket to watch would be slightly galling.
Appointment to view is the way to go IMHO with a One Day Cup game or T20's bolted onto/sandwiched within each round of Championship cricket. 2 divisions of 9 and 16 rounds and away you go.
Surrey and Warwickshire probably the two most bloody-minded sides in Division One, both capable of soaking up considerable punishment yet still coming back for more. That is a measure of Surrey's achievement in breaking the game in such startling fashion. Surrey's sense of when to step up the tempo was an impressive feature of their second win in three.
Alec Stewart, their director of cricket, ably backed up by Batty and and skipper Rory Burns, have re-established the sort of Surrey dominance that was felt in the 1950s and again at the turn of the century. On and off the field, they are setting the standards. The Championship cannot be settled in April, especially by a side that has only won two matches in three, but it is already abundantly clear that they will take some stopping.
Think there is definitely lots of truth in Warks still being a developing side as Robinson re-asserted. Winning the title in 2021 was off the back of 5 or 6 games hanging on in there against decent sides E.g. Notts twice, Essex. Surrey are now a step above anything we faced in that title winning season (maybe Hampshire and Durham's bowling aside) but I fancy Lancs to take the game to them and you never know what Essex might be able to conjure up when they meet at Chelmsford next week.
As for Warks I do still think we have a good attack now. Was it a bad time to play Surrey as some suggested or would they be even more dominant in July with IPL lads back? I was intrigued by the pitch prepared for this game. Also some criticism of allowing Surrey's eighth wicket pair to get away but that's cricket. Might Rhodes have thrown the ball to Hassan and Woakes once OHD completed his over? Possibly. But had the extra pace mix of yorkers and shorter stuff gone wrong we'd all have been asking why Rhodes hadn't stuck with the line and length that seemed to work on Day 2 but clearly allowed Jamie Smith and Worrall to cut loose. The amount of time they had to play shots
And by the way I'm not necessarily tipping them for the title. County sides with a bit of game nous (maybe Lancs or Notts) might well unseat them. It's just Surrey of all the sides appear to have all bases covered and could very well be in that position for a long time.
Some pundits ludicrously predicted a decade of Yorkshire dominance 7 or 8 years back but that was backed by fairly flimsy evidence. Surrey in complete contrast could conceivably go onto dominate the county scene for a lengthy spell. They won't however as someone will have the game nous to unseat them.
Have to disagree with your earlier point Paul. I think Surrey look a very decent team that could hold their own in these conditions against any test side. George Dobell described Warks circa 2011-2013 as perhaps the third best team in the world if they had Bell and Trott available and in English conditions. I think Surrey are almost at that level.
Some of Warwickshire's long term frailties came through today;
Failure to polish off the tail
Top order batting caught betwixt and between
Over reliance on Hain more recently but prior to that lower middle order for runs
But Kemar Roach is a very decent bowler who if he were England qualified would've likely been selected for ODI or test squads 5-10 years ago
Worrall looked superb attacked the batsman and Jordan Clark looks like he has all the attributes for international cricket.
It's been an excellent contest so far between two top drawer sides Surrey perhaps have the edge with their batting lineup but little to choose between them otherwise. Warks perhaps more of an emerging side especially the batting.
Beefing up the attack in the winter was just the job for games like this. You could probably see Miles or Henry Brookes or Garrett getting wickets yesterday when the odds were stacked in bowlers favour but the extra control this attack has means we can go toe to toe with the top counties. Anything less than 280 I'd have snapped your hand off just need to bat out of our skins when the time arrives tomorrow and/or Sunday
It'll possibly be in a dedicated 4 week window so players from the counties themselves plus 3/4 overseas picks. I guess the main issue is just how independent the entities will be and whether counties will have much jurisdiction of the competition and TV deals.
There'll still be the 8 or 9 top division to market like the current hundred. Suppose the blast would then be surplus or replaced by a knockout cup. Be a shame to lose Finals Day from Edgbaston but perhaps one reason why blast off been introduced and could still have Finals Day with mens and women's involvement
The most likely new structure would see the number of teams increase from the current 10 to 18, split into two divisions, with a team running alongside, but independently of, each first-class county and with branding focused on cities.
The ambition would be for the women’s tournament to eventually use the same format, though there might not be enough teams for it to do so from the start.
I'd be okay with this. My personal bug bear is the blocking up of the formats and loss of championship multiple weeks at a time but I accept the argument for blocks is a strong one and is well supported by others.
To protect the fantastic number of sides in county cricket this is fine by me. Clearly others would be concerned about the names of sides but to me this is a lesser concern than the actual format or the schedule which must help prepare England players for test and ODI cricket and enable people in all regions of England to enjoy top level cricket throughout the summer months
Think this is an important step. Key going forward is not the format but rather not to isolate the non TMG counties. Bringing minor counties back into a competitive tournament would be great and far better than just having 8 franchises and everyone else twiddling thumbs. I do hope there's still room for a 50-over or 40-over comp though perhaps a knockout comp.
One option is to invite the National Counties (formerly the Minor Counties) to join the 18 first-class teams in an expanded competition aimed at providing promising cricketers with a pathway into the professional game.
The T20 Blast might then become a two-league affair, with promotion and relegation.
I know at least one member of this board won't necessarily agree but I do still think there would be merit in holding onto some of the new team names/identities going forwards. Birmingham Phoenix could still exist as a concept for mens and women's T20 as it has definitely broadened appeal within the Greater Birmingham/West Midlands conurbation/region. Ditto for the Manchester Wales and Southampton teams. Perhaps less a need to retain Oval, Trent and Northern however. They can go back to being Surrey Notts and Yorkshire. Warwickshire could potentially then even field a second string/academy side in division two of whatever emerges and play at smaller grounds under the Warwickshire umbrella as could Lancs in Liverpool etc...
Story coming up on Central News.
Council vote passed apparently
Maybe he's unaware county games are already free for U16's and it's free entry after the tea break for all
Seems with it being such a wet spring pre-season and early season particularly in the south west Somerset are in no particular hurry to go home. Booked in till tomorrow so piling on the runs this afternoon and a full day to stretch their legs in the field (on presumably a drying playing surface and in more pleasant fielding conditions by then) tomorrow
Just hope Bears put up some sort of resistance
Heading for some kind of record margin of defeat here. These could be 650/700 ahead by close today and forecast is decent tomorrow. Guessing the two set batters will retire at lunchtime mind