GerryShedd wrote:

Rain getting very close to Southampton.
One consolation is that it may get to Canterbury too before Surrey finish off Kent.

Is this why we just kept batting?

I've raised this a couple of times at AGMs and told them its an easy PR and marketing win. The present lot just grin which is an improvement on some of their predecessors.

They seemed to drop the B word as soon as Hundred was introduced.

One memory from last season was the tense game against Essex when the whole crowd was chanting "Warwickshire la la la" at the crucial stage of the match.

I hope we play well but the 13 man squad looks pretty poor!

We don't seem to be ready this season!

Travelled the 27 miles home to watch the football.

Combination of brainless batting this morning and toothless bowling this afternoon.

Fear for our chances of staying up this season unless we can get a few games of Hain, Woakes and Ali.

A truly awful session this morning. Hard to come back from!

Thrown it away.

Now relying on bowlers to get us back into it!

Had a look in the Club shop and these sweaters are even worse than they looked in the pics.

Not Warwickshire sweaters.

And in any case the players still seem to be wearing the awful single blue strip version.

Had a look in the Club shop and these sweaters are even worse than they looked in the pics.

Not Warwickshire sweaters.

And in any case the players still seem to be wearing the awful single blue strip version.

I wish all this conventional wisdom had been apparent when we won the toss!

We seem to have gone back to proper cable knit sweaters which I welcome.

And the yellow stripe is back which i welcome.

Unfortunately however they have merged the blue and yellow stripes and now it doesn't look like a Warwickshire sweater.

Which should look like this:

https://www.fanphobia.net/uploads/actors/28504/1568602944_022479.player.jpg

and they've missed the white stripe out so it now looks like this:

https://www.edgbastonshop.com/WCCC-CRICKET-JUMPER

Opportunity missed!

Predictable!

There was no way they could play these matches at Edgbaston this year after what happened last year and this is the easiest solution!

Pretty clear from last year that Edgbaston just can't physically take the volume of cricket it had last year.

The wickets in all competitions were substandard towards the end.

I'm very passionate to see games taken around the County but was never under the illusion WCCC were doing this for altruistic reasons.

There is no way these games will be played on the edge of the Edgbaston square again this year!

I'm afraid he doesn't seem like a Warwickshire Captain to me!

I fear for this one.

The purpose of outground cricket is to take games around the County especially as we have become so Birmingham centric.

In terms of trains Nuneaton is the largest station in Coventry and Warwickshire with direct lines to Birmingham, Coventry as well as London, Manchester, Leicester etc

The largest populations starved of cricket are Coventry and Nuneaton.

However despite my small win I suspect their bigger agenda is to get wealthy sponsors from South of Warwickshire and set up a pseudo festival.

We’ll see. When I heard this at the dinner I thought somebody is reading this forum!!!

I actually like current people running the Club. They are polite, respond to emails and communicate well!

Hopefully can’t be to long for Birmingham Bears and we can revert to our proper name!

GerryShedd wrote:

Regarding out-grounds, I agree that it will be interesting to see which locations are chosen.
Middlesex are so strapped for cash that they are playing two of their T20 matches at Chelmsford on dates when Lord's is unavailable. According to The Telegraph, this will save them "a six figure sum" even though they will pay Essex a hosting fee.

At the end of season dinner the CEO and Performance Director said they were actively looking for an outground and would make an announcement in due course.

I always felt this was logical given the square was so over used at Edgbaston last year and the 50 overs matches became a joke as did a couple of proper County matches towards the end.

At the dinner he said South Warwickshire but I wrote saying this would be a major PR blunder if announced as majority of population live in the North of the County and there is a greater tradition of County cricket played there. He reassured me saying they were looking at the whole of the County.

I'd rather we produce our own players. We are supposed to be Warwickshire County Cricket Club.

I would hope they would be motivated to win a game of cricket anyway. If not we should be shipping them out and getting some local lads in!

In any case 3rd place completely now depends on the Hampshire result!

Given the Hampshire position we need 350 minimum here it seems to me.

At least this will waste a bit of time before we bat tomorrow.

Solbear wrote:

24-4, looks like a good toss to lose!

I did say I'd bowl.

No doubt we will get the usual suspects saying what great carry and what a good pitch but it looks the usual surface for Edgbaston this season.