Stokes said yesterday that Smith will come back in with Pope going up to three:

Pope has reiterated his preference for batting at number three and Stokes said England will revert to type when Smith is back in the summer.

"We will no doubt see Pope back up to three and Smudge back into his role," said Stokes. "Last week we had a problem and we found a solution to it. We have looked back at that game and the whole team set-up looked really good."

Bethell gets a two year England central contract. We won't see much of him in a Bears shirt now.

A surprise Larsen went so suddenly. It indicates a ruthlessness which has been sorely lacking. At least he handed us a nice parting gift of Tom Latham.

No mention of the lame duck Robinson still, hopefully they will be equally as ruthless and we can start with a clean slate.

Troughton would be a good pick for Director of Cricket.

"Big overseas player" inbound today. At last a new recruit!

I doubt the Bears will see much of him now he is on the international and franchise circuit. There are big holes to fill in our squad.

Bethell should be in line for his test debut this week. Jordan Cox has broken a thumb and Ollie Pope will have to take the gloves for the first test while they await Ollie Robinson's arrival as replacement wicketkeeper.

c2aw wrote:

https://www.ecb.co.uk/news/4171567/vitality-blast-mens-competition-fixtures-2025

Am I the only one saddened by the fact that the name that appears on the list doesn't include our proper name, but only by a nickname which isn't unique to us as it's shared by others including Chicago, Bristol etc?

It appears they have quietly dropped Birmingham but I won't rest until Warwickshire is fully reinstated to our name.

GerryShedd wrote:

The latest Cricketer magazine has a different take on the end of season review from the on-line version:
"Following a disappointing four-day campaign from a team perspective, the management duo of Gavin Larsen and Mark Robinson carried out an October review which included asking the opposition coaches for feedback on what they felt were the team's strengths and weaknesses."
A novel approach, though I think I would have been inclined to tell them: "That's your job. If you don't know, I'm not going to tell you."

Are these pair for real? They get paid big salaries to win cricket matches and yet the best they can come up with is to ask other teams what they should be doing better.
Case in point why both need to find the door marked 'exit'.

The T20 fixtures are out on Thursday followed by Championship and ODC on Tuesday 26th.

The Cricketer has published an article about the review headed 'all options are open' and says the review will be presented by the end of November.
The full article is behind a paywall unfortunately.

The coaching staff seem to have sucked all of the joy out of playing. They have created a toxic environment and a culture of underperformance.

Bald_Reynard wrote:

Solbear wrote:

KingofSpain wrote:

Players have reported back to Edgbaston. No sign of Robinson...

Not so sure about that - looks like he's supervising training in a video posted on the Bears Facebook page on Monday 11th November....

I expect he's just there temporarily 'covering' early training and nets, until a proper replacement is made. The fact that he's not made any public pronouncements in nearly 2 months, must mean he's on his way.

This seems likely. Robinson will still be on the payroll and until they agree a settlement he will have to turn up for work.

I hope we get news on the coaching set up and new players soon. The inactivity of the club does not bode well for next season.
The good news is that we should have plenty of funds for recruitment with the amount of senior players departing and off the wage bill. I imagine Rhodes, Burgess and Norwell were on significant salaries. Unless the club spends it all on T20 mercenaries again.

Players have reported back to Edgbaston. No sign of Robinson...

A real shock that Burgess has jacked it in. Another big hole to fill with our recruitment. We now need two front line batsman, wicketkeeper, spinner and fast bowler.
I hope Larsen is well down the road with these signings but at least there's still plenty of time.

Officially retired from cricket, sadly.

No reference at all to Robinson in the PR. The silence is deafening.

I certainly hope you are right BR.

Meanwhile, as the club dithers, we are missing out on potential coaches and players. Recruitment is crucial. Even today Middlesex have signed Zafar Gohar from Gloucester (classed as a domestic rather than overseas player). He would have been an ideal addition to be our main spinner and he can bat too.

Bald_Reynard wrote:

https://www.cricketworld.com/ethan-bambers-first-interview-as-a-bear/98007.htm

Interview with Ethan Bamber, VERY interesting (possibly!), that all the WCCC part is done by Larsen, there are no comments by Robinson and no mention by Bamber that he is looking forward to working with / benefiting from the coaching of MR ..... blah blah ..... like new recruits often say.

I might be reading too much into this, but I might not be!!

Larsen seems to be front and centre at the moment. Robinson nowhere to be seen or heard.
It's a shame we missed out on Lehmann, a real coup for Northants. That's the calibre of coach we need.

Total silence since this review was called. No recruitment, no words from the hierarchy.

Interesting news that Darren Lehmann is available and in the running for Northants. We need to move quickly to get him (if Trotty or Bell are unavailable). Ideal replacement for the dead-man walking Robinson.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/cricket/2024/10/22/darren-lehmann-northamptonshire-county-northants-australia/