Poached by the Pears:
https://wccc.co.uk/news/worcestershire-sign-highly-rated-prospect-isaac-mohammed-on-three-year-deal/
Yep captained out u18's as recently as Thursday. We've been robbed here.
Crazy, how have we let Isaac get away?! For 2 years he's been the pick of the Academy team, the U 18's and last year & this, the 2nds. A very talented opening bat, decent bowler. The Pears have done it again, taken one of our most promising players (to join Ethan Brookes). Management should be ashamed
'The only good banker, is the Lickey Banker!'
I hear hollow Pears laughter at the thought of anyone from Warwickshire complaining about poaching of players.
I agree that there needs to be some serious soul searching within the Club about this. There could be a whole story that we don't know; but a player of such promise shouldn't have been lost.
Isaac already turning out for Worcester 2nds - he got 11, opening the batting against Somerset. As the Pears are in our 2nd's T20 group, no doubt he'll be playing against us - and will score loads! Only the start of a long career, scoring heavily for Worcester!?
'The only good banker, is the Lickey Banker!'
In The Cricketer, George Dobell attempts to explain the Isaac Mohammed move.
He says that the Ali family offered Warwickshire first refusal on Isaac but there was no contract on the table whereas Worcestershire gave him a rookie deal to be followed, in November, by a full three year contract.
George stresses that the Club's relationship with the family is "far better than it used to be." But he says that Warwickshire are failing to utilise a resource on their doorstep - the Ali family's MA Academy,
Yeah its a decent article that, quite revealing.
It's all a great shame, seeing an excellent prospect leave our own academy like this. A top order batter who can bowl seam, they don't come along often. We have no problem offering contracts to players from outside the Warwickshire pathway. But when it's 'one of own' we seem so reluctant.
We don't always fully commit to backing locally produced homegrown talent anywhere near as much as we like to think.
Seems crazy to have not offered him a deal
Called up by England under 19s. No young Bears in the squad, which is an indictment of our academy/pathway programme.
https://www.ecb.co.uk/news/4283424/thomas-rew-to-captain-england-men-u19s-in-odis-against-india-u19s
Yep, that's really rubbing salt in our wounds. I was upset enough to find we'd lost him (and we did shoot ourselves in the foot, only offering him a 1 year contract), but to find he would have been our only England U19 player, just makes a mockery of our Academy programme.
We really do need to sort out our Player Contract arrangements (for youngsters, as well as current & new players). How is it that a relatively poor County like Worcester, can offer 3 year contracts and we can't?!
'The only good banker, is the Lickey Banker!'
Totally agree. You see we're quick enough to offer contracts to players from outside of the pathway off the back of a decent couple of months but we don't seem to offer contracts to players who have been part of our own pathway for a number of seasons anywhere near as readily.
KingofSpain wrote:
Called up by England under 19s. No young Bears in the squad, which is an indictment of our academy/pathway programme.
https://www.ecb.co.uk/news/4283424/thomas-rew-to-captain-england-men-u19s-in-odis-against-india-u19s
Before there's any more rubbishing of the academy programme (the one through which Isaac Mohammed progressed), it may be worth reminding ourselves that, this time last year, Hamza Shaikh, Tazeem Ali and Theo Wylie were all selected for England Under-19s and Hamza Shaikh captained them and scored a century against Sri Lanka.
I fully agree with the criticism that the Club should not have allowed him to get away from us but that's a different issue.
With respect, we are not producing first team ready players. The progress of both Wylie and Sheikh has seemingly stalled this year. The last bowler we produced was Chris Woakes about 15 years ago. Mouseley and Bethell have bucked the trend because they have something special. This shouldn't be allowed to mask the decades of failure of Warwickshire's youth system.
GerryShedd wrote:
I fully agree with the criticism that the Club should not have allowed him to get away from us but that's a different issue.
This has become a bit of a trend. Overly willing to sign players on trial or from elsewhere, than to persist with our own youth.
We seem to still have an attitude from 20 years ago. That players have to spend at least a couple of years playing 2’s on their first contract.
But young players these days are happy to leave to get game time. Also you look how the likes of Surrey, Sussex (slightly different reasoning), Essex, Durham and some others have gone about it, they identify high potential players, then back them young and get them in the side even if they’re not quite as good as an external player they could sign. They give them time in the team to reach that level. Then only sign “marquee” players who really improve a side or who cover a specific gap.
The talent is there, but there’s a clear gap between academy and first team at the moment.
BristolBear wrote:
GerryShedd wrote:
I fully agree with the criticism that the Club should not have allowed him to get away from us but that's a different issue.
This has become a bit of a trend. Overly willing to sign players on trial or from elsewhere, than to persist with our own youth.
We seem to still have an attitude from 20 years ago. That players have to spend at least a couple of years playing 2’s on their first contract.
But young players these days are happy to leave to get game time. Also you look how the likes of Surrey, Sussex (slightly different reasoning), Essex, Durham and some others have gone about it, they identify high potential players, then back them young and get them in the side even if they’re not quite as good as an external player they could sign. They give them time in the team to reach that level. Then only sign “marquee” players who really improve a side or who cover a specific gap.
The talent is there, but there’s a clear gap between academy and first team at the moment.
This is true I'm afraid. We've never really backed our own academy talent as much as the club likes to think. I mean we signed Vaansh Jani (im not knocking him at all) to a rookie contract off the back of a good 4-6 weeks at the start of the season but Isaac Mohammed was going to have to wait til the end of the season despite having an excellent 2024, a strong start to 2025 and an ability to bowl serviceable seam.
The bowling side of things, we contracted Adam Sylvester and put him straight into the side when we had an academy product in Ben Blakemore (who actually has a rookie contract) playing in the 2's.
Somethings not quite right.