mad wrote:

Nothing about the modern game and the insistence on lots of preparation time (which translates as utterly wasted 'fallow days' especially when we get lots of fallow days stacked together for weeks on end in June, July and August) and the athletic prowess some of the players possess now, the sprinting and relay catches etc... pretty as they are... will ever make up for the loss of opportunities to watch red ball cricket in places like this;
https://youtu.be/I6B6EQNPWng?si=qXlVrfko9A0jSptw
Nice interview with Tom Cartwright in the tea interval

Great to see the interview with my hero, Tom Cartwright.
And what a lovely setting! I saw first-class cricket at Abergavenny and on my wall I have a print of Cricket at Abergavenny, painted by ex-Sussex cricketer Martin Speight.

He's not exactly in the Colin Milburn or Mike Gatting zone though, for a quick bowler, he certainly looks as if he could lose a pound or two. But you could have said the same about Merv Hughes and he didn't do too badly.
He does look to have potential, which makes it more surprising that none of the other counties that he has played for have snapped him up.

I think the threat of eight games is so that we will be pleased when it is only reduced to 12.

Excellent article by Nick Hoult in the Telegraph today about Bethell's performance for England yesterday - describing him as a generational talent. It has a picture of him aged 12 with academy director Paul Greentham at Edgbaston in 2013. Worth a read if you can get behind the paywall:
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/cricket/2025/05/29/england-vs-west-indies-live-score-latest-updates-first-odi/?WT.mc_id=e_DM596088&WT.tsrc=email&etype=Edi_PrS_New&utmsource=email&utm_medium=Edi_PrS_New20250530&utm_campaign=DM596088

It’s being so cheerful that keeps us going.

Yes, a 2 year contract.

Yes, a 2 year contract.

I think Reabank is right.

Yes, welcome Charlie.
I don't know of any forum members meeting up but maybe others do.

More on the Blast squad:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/cricket/articles/c628e801456o

According to The Cricketer, Warwickshire are keen to sign Australian spinner Corey Rocchiccioli for the next four County Championship matches.
Rocchiccioli, 27, plays his state cricket for Western Australia and featured for Australia A against England Lions over the winter.
Warwickshire are set to sign him up for the four Kookaburra matches in June and July.

"ESPNcricinfo has learned that Bethell will ..... fly home before their final group match in Lucknow and report to Birmingham ahead of the first ODI at Edgbaston."

To be fair, the team pulled off a victory against the odds v Durham and won a match v Yorkshire that could have gone either way.

The report on the Club site says:
"Finding 327 runs on a difficult pitch under thick cloud against an attack led by Woakes and Rushworth is about as tough an assignment as county cricket gets."
But it doesn't draw the obvious conclusion that a lesser target and more time would have made victory more likely.

Captains generally seem to be very reluctant to make a declaration based on a weather forecast. This seems to be a case in point unless it is the opposite - Alex Davies is so convinced that the forecast is right that he thinks there is no chance of a result and so will just bat on.
The way Division One is shaping, Warwickshire are gradually getting shoved down the table by teams such as Surrey, Sussex and Somerset that started the season slowly but are now doing better.

I could swear I saw a news posting on the Club website with the squad details but it seems to have disappeared. Based on what (I think) I saw, Chris Woakes is not, after all, in the squad.

"No longer available:
Webster
Booth"
Does that mean that Anne Ziegler is unavailable too?
(PS - a less than topical joke!)

Despite that disastrous first over from Miles, a good win for the Bears.

The article on the Club website says:
"The 36-year-old is building back to match fitness and is expected to be included in the Bears squad that travels to New Road on Friday."
Of course, that doesn't mean that he will definitely play.

Looks as though he might just play at Worcester, which would be better than nothing.