Good point, I often feel that any management might say "You got us this far so why shouldn't you be the ones to try and win it". I cannot help but feel that apart from the monetary rewards, anyone playing in 'The HunDread' do not care that much for it as a team game compared to playing for your county with players you know well and it makes me wonder if they long to play in a final but can't do much about it if not picked.

Don't want Giles back, he just jumps from job to job depending on how big it is and I think the success we had here when he was involved, would have happened anyway, with or without him.

STEVENS FOR WARWICKSHIRE, we can make it happen, just believe.

Last time we won the RL cup in 2016, the semi was played on August bank holiday Monday v Somerset. Today is bank holiday Monday and when are the semi's being played this year, yes, tomorrow when most people are back at work. I have always thought the same as you LE, that we should have cricket most days even if you stagger most fixtures. In 2014 I only watched cricket twice on a Saturday and both times it was because they were finals. It was either Kevin Howells or Pat Murphy who when interviewing a Scottish ECB member around this time, questioned them about lack of weekend cricket. Needless to say, if I could have put my hands through the radio and dragged the bloke out, I would have done so as his crass reply made my blood boil, suggesting that young people should be playing club cricket and not watching cricket and then contradicted himself by saying that only over 50's watched CC cricket at weekends - The very people who are mainly unlikely to be playing, with a few exceptions.

Well, from what SC_Bear said, a close family member saying something might be where the so-called 'Rumour' comes from but playing a competition like the Royal London will not always give players a good test of how good they are.

In the space of a few months, a few years ago I read Duncan Hamilton's book on Harold Larwood, David Frith's 'Bodyline Autopsy' 'The real Jeeves' which might still be in the club shop 'Jack Hobbs' by Leo McKinstry and a small publication 'And the fields were sudden bare' about Frank Foster by Robert Brooke. These books would make cricketers of this age think twice before they have a moan about money, how much they play and the facilities they have. The detail in them is immense and gives you a feel for the times these players lived in.

mad is right about getting a familiarity to the whole of the county season and if we had 10 CC games, 14 T20 and 8 Royal London, that's just a minimum of 62 days. Will we still be expected to pay the same sort of money for our membership compared to getting about 90+ days when the fixture list wasn't messed about with. I get the feeling that we will still get little cricket at weekends and little of it because CC games will start on a Sunday anyway and will probably do so like they did at the start of one season before the T20 which was due to start 10 weeks later. If Strauss get his way with 10 CC games you can bet the fixture list will still look a mess and offer members nothing that they want. The whole of the ECB ethos seems to be "Look at Test matches, they are full..", yes with 1000's of people who don't watch county cricket but turn up for the glam/glory games but still call themselves cricket fans. If they did get a fixture list that pleased most members of counties, I get the feeling that they would always want to still tamper with it and try and wear us all down.

Yes BristolBear, we have a habit of allowing/letting those established players leave and not seeming to care about it much. In Rikki Clarke's case, I get the feeling he just didn't want to be here any more but even looking at one-day only players, I get the feeling that not much is done to keep them. The Barker/Wright departures were one of the biggest fiasco's the club were ever responsible for and I suppose it's good that they have done nothing since, oh! No wait a minute..... It would be interesting to know if anything was done to keep certain players at the club if/when they wanted to leave or were approached by other clubs or did the club just hold up their hands and say "Go on then if you really want to go we won't stop you". I pray we stay up but it will need something special to do so, having a few players back soon would help, if only this 'The Hundread' would just go and ** off.

mad - I said exactly the same thing to Alan Higham about Dennis's walks around the ground and the members who used to love his friendly persona. It did feel like a 'Club' then who cared about it's members and he was Mr Warwickshire through and through but it has all got so corporate now with too many rules and regulations regarding just about everything from not being able to bring beer in at some games to not actually being able to bring cans of any sort in (I was stopped from bringing in a can of Pepsi and tried to explain that as a diabetic, it's sugar content was higher than other drinks and more likely to up my sugar levels if it should go low. I was told that I could buy one if necessary and explained that a wait in the queue could involve me going into a coma before I got served) and this is the way our game has been taken away from us now and become a corporate exercise in making money like everything else from prices for Test tickets to massively overpriced food. The relaxation you get at a CC game is so different from other forms of the game. The whole thing is more 'us & them' than ever it was.

Well done Malc, it'll be a great shame if some don't want to give their signatures. Watching a pitiful amount of CC cricket will mean that when England fail to produce Test players and lose Test matches/series, those who didn't want to sign can hardly call themselves 'Cricket fans' and should hang their heads in shame.

Sums up the season, we have failed to beat a side who had nothing to play for and who have done naff all in any limited over games this season. I agree with meashambear about his assessments on Somerset's bowling and I have said so often over the years we play pat-a-cake with awful bowling and allow club-standard 'pie-throwers' to often dictate the way the game goes instead of planting their rubbish over the boundary as often as possible. A very bad chase and out of a competition by a small margin and only ourselves to blame.

No it doesn't but Rhodes out as I speak and I fear we will be "Concentrating on the league" now. Maddy out now, another slightly leg-side LBW.

199-5 now and Smith just has to try and stay with the captain. Leicestershire now 158-8 so still all to play for. COYB.

And annoyingly, Leicestershire are fighting back to the point where they are now perhaps, favourites at 136-6 with plenty of time to get them.

100-4 is poor if you consider what is to come after. A lot depends on the skipper. Leicestershire are 68-6 and so victory takes us through if they lose but the feeling at moment is that Somerset who have done *** all so far in tis competition are going to put and end to our one-day season.

Yes, that is one of many annoying things about that competition players sit on their bums without getting valuable games whilst their respective counties need them to actually play. Why is is that this format gets first dibs on players, especially if they don't play them.

I also saw Alan as soon as he came in and saw the literature he had and what his plans were/are. It was impressive and I hope our club takes some notice as I really do not want them to feel as though they speak for members when they never appear to ask us anything about things like the reduction in CC matches, etc.

We are hoping that Durham beat Leicestershire and we beat Somerset. The group winners automatically go into the semi-finals (That should be the case in the T20 also) and the 2nd and 3rd qualify. So we must hope that Durham do better than today. They have lost a few players and like so many in this competition, once they lose the first 4, the rest of the batting looks lost. Not sure how many players they have lost to The Hundread but even 2-3 does make a difference. Good job Norwell had a good stint and then OHD as usual plus the skipper, because the rest were just about keeping us in it. Happy it didn't go down to the last 2 overs as I have no idea who might have had to bowl those if 20 were needed to win.

That can be a real danger and focussing too much on T20 does leave some counties without any focus for the whole season. When Gloucestershire won a lot of one-day cups, they didn't get out of the 2nd division because they just didn't seem bothered and same for Worcestershire after their only T20 success. I remember back in 2012 when Sussex and Somerset were both in with a chance of the CC and played each other the day before T20 final day which they were both involved in. It was a close game and when it rained with Somerset needing 5 wickets and Sussex needing 49, a lot of the commentators/journo's pointed out that both sides just seemed to want to get on a coach and head to Edgbaston instead of trying to win the game and it ended in a draw. I hope that is not a trend whereby CC cricket is not looked upon as being important because T20 bypasses everything.

If it is true that certain players feel pushed out then it must be a bad atmosphere in the dressing room. I am not sure just what sort of team we have to pick any of the sides for any game, but who has the final say in selection and is the one person who does, pick the best team despite what the others say. Some of our sides this season have looked poor and you often wonder what a certain player has done to stay in despite consistently bad performances. The players not picked must scratch their heads in disbelief if they feel their chance should have come. Some of the earlier comments were tongue-in-cheek but there is a general frustration that certain players are going and some have just not progressed very well.