Hi, perhaps time to update this discussion. I think it would be sensible for someone, me at a push, to put a special resolution before the AGM. Not so much in the expectation of success but to remind the board that we are a member's club and "direction of cricket" decisions must be made on the basis of a fair vote of the membership. A special resolution would need to be supported by 250 members & it would be interesting to know if I could expect any support from this forum. More on my concerns below.

As I understand it the ECB is now trying to sell 49% of The Hundred franchises with the proceeds to be split between the 18 first class counties, the MCC and grass roots cricket. The remaining 51% will be gifted to the home franchise county, i.e. Warwickshire end up with a 51% stake in Bham 100. I've two concerns with this, 1. The gift of 51% of the franchises is inappropriate, the franchises are owned by the ECB, effectively, on trust for the whole of cricket so they can't gift 51% of them away to favoured partners. There's also a practical issue here, in the days of the Warwickshire sweep there was an understanding that Warwickshire's windfall wealth needed to be shared out, the county wasn't a profit maximizing business and shouldn't behave like one. I don't believe WCCC's current senior management have that appreciation, they come from business and rugby backgrounds. The members need to ensure the windfall is spent appropriately.
Objection 2 is that if WCCC hold 51% of the Hundred franchise with outside investors holding 49% we will never be sure whether the club is being managed in the interests of its members or the board's new, exciting business friends.
As for what a special resolution would say I think we need to get the board to acknowledge that members have the final say on the board's proposals. So perhaps a resolution could, 1. require the board to sell any 51% Bham 100 holding to the highest reputable bidder and 2 to, at a future special meeting, outline proposals for how it intends to spend its windfall with some proportion going to wider cricket (or maybe just charitable) projects.

Well balanced as ever Gerry. Just one point the Blast had about 1 million attendance prior to the Hundred and although the figures did vary year on year the trend was (maybe) up. That now seems to have gone down to about 800k. So something around 200k / 300k of the Hundred's attendance is cannibalising the Blast.

KingofSpain wrote:

Hugely disappointing to lose another semi final but we did well to get that far with the resources available. We struggled to get big totals on the board and really lost momentum after losing Yates and Hamza.
The emergence of Kai Smith is a big positive and both Taz Ali and Booth made strides forward.
I keep saying it, but we really need a top class batting coach to improve these players. Look at Somerset and the talent they are producing along with vastly improving someone like Andy Umeed, who is unrecognisable from his time with the Bears. Time for Frost to go.
Robinson 's job surely now hinges on making T20 finals day as a minimum requirement. And the small matter of securing our championship status.
Think that's very hard on Frost. We currently have Sam Hain, Rob Yates Dan Mousley, and Jacob Bethell playing first team cricket with decent prospects in Hamza Sheikh, Kai Smith & Theo Wylie. Batting has been pretty consistent this season regardless of format, our problem has been taking 20 wickets in the championship.

Yes obviously disappointing not to reach the final but I do like the 50 over competition. Players being siphoned off for The Hundred isn't really right but it does give you the chance to see a younger generation. For us Kai Smith was the obvious stand out, presumably / hopefully he'll play in the Blast quarter final. I thought Booth and Ali both had solid competitions, Ali seemed calm with bat and ball & like he always had a wicket in him, if a touch expensive. Hamza a tad disappointing but runs at England U19 & A team and might get a chance in next year's county championship? Theo Wylie didn't get much of a look in and will hopefully play more in next year's competition.

I KNOW NOTHING! (see earlier post for details.) Kai Smith. They can't nick him for the hundred can they?

Bad news: I reckon that's 30 - 40 too many.
Good news: I'm a lousy judge.

I think Kent charge already and made £5k or so in 2023. If that was for a full year I'd think leaving it free would be better than charging. And getting people to register might well help. Also if the figures for the value of the Hundred are correct the Warwickshire board will be hard at work devising a distribution to long suffering members rather than thinking of new charges.

I thought I saw something that Chris Benjamin might leave at the end of the season? If so Zen is maybe more replacing him than Rhodes.

Yes, 1st class average of 27 and seems best as a red ball player. Will be pushing for a place in the 4 day team and fills a need. Does say he won't be joining until the winter, shame as he would have been useful for the September relegation fight.

Some of the criticism is over the top. We have three batters with 2024 cc averages of over 50 (Davis, Burgess and Yates), Barnard averaging 47 and Rhodes 41. Jacob Bethell is emerging as a strong all formats player - Dan Mousley has struggled in the championship but these things happen. And we have a decent crop of batsmen and a spin bowler at U19 level. It's disappointing that in the two games we lost we got into positions to win but I think Davis and Robinson are fine as a captain and coach combination.
Having said that I don't think it's a surprise that we've come up short on the pace bowling as we always looked thin . We haven't had a decent spinner since Jeetan Patel left - in recent seasons no spinner hasn't really mattered but with generally good batting pitches (too good in some cases) spin is more relevant this season. We don't produce good bowlers and don't seem to be prepared to recruit good championship bowlers or at least not enough of them. I also agree that the approach of bringing in emergency overseas players hasn't worked.

Barker one of my favourite players, so mixed emotions seeing him turn the game against us. Such a skilful bowler.

We somehow seem to have gone from having no fit bowlers to more than we know what to do with. I had a quick look at his stats, Norwell hasn't played many T20s and I'm not sure if he's played any for us? His record isn't great - going for almost 10 an over but perhaps a bit unfair to judge him on that. I'd expect us to be focused on getting him back for the second half of the championship - think there's a second xi game coming up and maybe he'll be OK to go in that.

Hello All
Hope you're well enjoying World Cup, T20 and the Euros. I have rather belatedly done a review of Warwickshire's 2023 financial statements. Link to the post is
https://sideonviewcricket.substack.com/p/warwickshire-county-cricket-club
I've moved the blog to substack, if you click on the subscribe button, you'll get updates whenever I post.
Although it says subscribe you won't be charged (now or ever) it's just the way substack works.

Burgess being left out is pretty understandable. In his Blast career he has averaged 18 at about 120 runs per hundred balls. Chris Benjamin is averaging 27 at 150. The management is judging that Burgess' keeping doesn't make up for his batting and that seems a pretty solid judgement imo. 2 wins from two I'm quite happy with the start although suspect we have played two of the weaker teams.

Yeah it is a bit crazy - with the possible exception of Italian cycling English cricket is the worst organised sport I can think of. I guess the issue is that all the counties want to play late in the week. In my opinion it would be better if the season wasn't played in blocks then we could fit in a couple of T 20s in May and ease the pressure on prime dates.

A question: assuming a full days play tomorrow, what would people do? Declare overnight to maximize our chances against a struggling side but risk losing or make the game safe and hope to nick it late on? With 8 for a draw and 16 for a win I'd go for make it safe(ish) 4.5 plus an over to win before declaring.

It's an interesting article. The Durham chap is clearly a bit odd - he also refers to county members as the lowest common denominator but Durham doesn't have any members. Later on in the article Richard Gould, current ECB chief executive and former chief executive of Surrey says the issue is more of counties moving away from their members and membership numbers dwindling as a result. It's an interesting point, the last set of filed accounts showed Surrey with 19,000 members, that's double the number in 2018. For other counties the numbers are either flat or have declined over the period.

Thanks Gerry
As ever, well written and fair. I'm a bit more pessimistic than you about the championship and wonder about our fast bowling depth. Batting and spin bowling looks to have more depth and more good prospects coming through than we have had for a while - challenge may be giving them a chance. Agree we seem to have a strong squad for The Blast, fingers crossed we can win a knock - out match or three.

Interesting and thanks for putting up. I've no inside knowledge but looking on I think the ECB under its new(ish) chairman is trying to be more consensual and saying to the counties what do you think. But the counties all think different things. Lancashire love the Hundred as it is and don't want to see it expanded. The medium sized counties would like to join an enlarged Hundred. The smaller counties don't care for The Hundred but like the £1.3m the ECB pays in return for them accepting it. The ECB likes The Hundred just fine but doesn't like the £1.3m it pays to every county.

Hello All
Hope you're wintering well. On my blog I have a review of the financial position of 17 of the 18 first class counties, which includes a financial stability league table. And Warwickshire are off the bottom. Link below.
https://sideoncricket.blogspot.com/2024/02/bentley-forbes-consulting-rankings-2022.html