I live in London and have seen Warwickshire at 2 Middlesex outgrounds now, Uxbridge and Radlett, plus I have been to Old Deer Park in Richmond to see other Middlesex games. No way are they laying out 100K for these fixtures. It seems to be four things they get in i) Portable toilets ii) Small stands and tents iii) An immense stack of foldable chairs with the understanding you bring your own if you don't like hard plastic iv) Catering vans or mobile bars, at it's best and most rudimentary, at Richmond, an old enamel bath filled with ice with 100s of cans in it. One thing I don't know, Uxbridge and Richmond have big bars or pavilions and can handle a big crowd, it might be the Warks ground don't have. But it's not a deal breaker. Admittedly I haven't thought about parking, that might be different in London, and I don't know how much those four things cost, but there is an income against those things as well...

Davies
Bethell
Moeen Ali
Hain
Mousley
Benjamin
Woakes
Briggs
Brookes (H)
Norwell
Rushworth

That's my counting sheep exercise from Sunday night: An eleven either with the 100 or injured. Some side. I'm aware two of those were back today. I don't have an issue with missing players, Somerset were missing 15 at one point, or the umpiring. One of OHDs was quite fortunate today. We need to be put under pressure or have some fault that we can correct. I'd rather it happen now than in the knockout stage. We've lost some real clutch games recently and playing under pressure must be something they've discussed.

I agree getting Bethell back would make sense. But not sure it would actually change the strength of this team that much, I think all that would do is a proper, specialist, established batsman (Alex Davies, looking your way). It's the only thing we're a bit light on really. As a winding down exercise yesterday evening I put together an XI of players we are missing for this competition. It is an incredibly strong XI though it gets a bit red-ball specialist with the bowlers.

Had some luck in this competition with good tosses v Gloucs and Worcs but probably more so some good play with decent patterns of performance too - the same methods are getting the results though Inwonder what would have happened without Barnard? He's contributed in every single innings. It would be good to get a really good test of our approach before knockouts but on the whole it's hard to see where we would or could change anything.

I wouldn't have thought they'd drop Booth after one game. Makes sense to give him a second or a third chance.

Good win and excellent to hold their nerve, that doesn't always happen. Is Hamza good in the field then? Excellent if so, so much potential if he's only 17.

I watched four overs of this at lunch and Yates and Barnard must have scored about 30 runs. Said then to myself, 330-340 would be a good score and should win us the game - which is where we are. Should we have got more? I see from the card both Kai Smith and Hamza were scoring at over 200 for 33 runs. Will they be dissapointed? Is it in their objectives to get more runs than that? It's definitely something to work on though I'm being too critical for now as they should be able to defend this. Rhodes' 44 off 44 I strangely am ambivalent about...

What do we know about Michael Booth? Cricinfo has him as right arm fast, which would be good, south african (surely England qualified and not overseas?) but seems like better recent batting figures than bowling??

The conditions for release were quite difficult and it's loaded in favour of the 100 team. But it did seem we got Briggs back from Southern quite easily. Who knows what line Birmingham take with Bethell. If Mo Ali has taken his space and he needs cricket, it should be a good case.

Andy wrote:

At a glance a few Birmingham Phoenix games clash with our one day cup games so am I correct in assuming it's going to be harder to get the likes of Bethell and H Brookes released?

I looked back to our results in this comp last year as I could recall winning by 8 wickets against Gloucs at the start. Our placing wasn't terrible last year, just got two massive defeats so it might well be we're very well placed this year, we're building off something. I notice Bethell didn't play in the 100 last night - would be good to get him back as a batsman.

OK that's good to know. I just looked at the scorecard and read a report. If Hamza is keeping his composure well it's promising for 17 years old and better than the game I saw him in last year, when he got frustrated, bogged down and got himself out.

Andy wrote:

Nice to see Hamza keep his composure after an uncertain start when he struggled to get a few away and hit the fielders a few times.

Good, and important, win that. Some hopefully slightly easier games coming in what is the weaker pool. Greatly encouraging to see the young lads do well, particularly Hamza. If he'd got out early we would have been run through, when he was out the game was virtually won although Kai and Lintott played well to assure it.

With the 100 meaning so many players are unavailable this is fundamentally a development competition and I actually like that about it, it's good seeing what up-and-coming players there are. It's very hard to see our, or indeed anyone else's, prospects in it without knowing who we will have loaned back. Mousley and Bethell it would be good to see back and it would allow them to shoot for a leadership role seeing as they broke-out a couple of years ago now. Micky B wasn't in the washed out warm up against Wales, hope to see him though my biggest fear is if he doesn't play in this (specialist bat at number 4? Kai Smith to keep?) then he'll leave the club at the end of the season. Love to see Norwell get some bowling as warm up for the CC run-in even though I don't really see him as a white ball player.

mad wrote:

Agree I hope we target winning this competition this season rather than use it as a development competition as we appeared to last couple of seasons. We have enough points to be able to use the final two home Championship fixtures in September as development games for a one or two of the youngsters

It seems Middlesex pick one outground a year and play multiple games there. It was Radlett last year (which I went to, was nice but a weird slope and virtually all facilities were brought in) OMT school this year, Richmond in the past and a long time ago Uxbridge. Doesnt seem to be much difference between them as the same ubiquitious stack of folding chairs have been at all of them. On the Middlesex experience, there's no problem Warks playing at any of the grounds, as someone said where there's a will there's a way, but respect the answers of those who say grounds don't work for whatever reason.

Andy wrote:

Uxbridge is woeful do Middlesex still use it?

I saw and took part in a twitter discussion on it and that passage you quote, Gerry, was the crucial one. As interpret it TRJ was still wafting his bat around, overelaborately, when regaining normal position after his shot. So it is still his follow through and therefore he hadn't "completed any action in receiving the delivery". One thing we will probably never know now is if the ball was dead or not at this moment, ie hit the ground beyond the boundary. This is the subject of the next para in the rules, and neither camera has both in shot, understandably. Both umpires were watching the ball in flight. Personally I think moral out from the unnecessary, ostentatious even, bat waving after the shot ;-). But of course I am a Warks supporter.

GerryShedd wrote:

Back to the match - there has apparently been quite a bit of discussion on at least one umpiring forum about the hit wicket decision against Toby Roland Jones. The consensus seems to be that he was wrongly given out because it is not out if the contact with the stumps occurs, as the Laws says, "after the striker has completed any action in receiving the delivery" . As I understand it, the only exceptions to this are if it happens when the striker is setting off for a run or is seeking to defend his wicket, neither of which seems to have been the case.
The suggestion is that both umpires were (understandably) following the flight of the ball and didn't see what happened and that, had there been DRS available, the decision would have been not out.
What do others (and especially our resident umpire Highveld) think?

Reading between the lines I don't think he knows what he wants to do or is capable of. It was a while ago he said he wanted to come back and pay Warwickshire back for the time invested in him against time lost with England. Bell and Mo Ali said the same. But the fact these guys have a short careers and need to boost their earnings and the fact they're in a slump following international careers might mean this is quite fanciful.

With Woakes I hope he finishes internationals on a high and I'd be happy for him to play franchise gigs overseas that don't affect his stated availability for whatever tapered career with Warks he decides on.

GerryShedd wrote:

Interesting article - but I didn't see any mention of Warwickshire.

If there is to be an overseas who should it be?

I like the story of your previous visit to Canterbury Gerry. The flight there from Birmingham sounds interesting too. I've been to Canterbury three times in the last 18 years or so (easy from London, especially on the new fast train from St Pancras) and agree a very nice ground, in the same sort of category as Worcester though Worcester does shade it. I remember having two quite unpleasant conversations with some of their supporters there, bit boastful and crass about Rob Key of all people, but probably three or more more pleasant ones and was taken care of well when I had my then 14 month old son with me. So net-net all good.

To today it seems a slight shift in balance with Essex winning and Hampshire drawing. I said after a previous game I think 2nd is the best we can do this year and I think we will need to play really well to beat Essex to that. Hants seem on the wane a bit now and I think we'll see them off but Essex are at the peak of their powers. The run ins will be interesting.

It's hard to look far beyond a loss of temperament on the big day for me. Can point to supposed inadequacies with the team but that got us to top place so it was good enough. I wonder if last year's thrashing played on our minds a bit. Another thing that occured to me: are we a long way behind the southern teams in white ball cricket? I've suddenly got memories of a whole stack of southern counties giving us limited overs kicking in recent years.

Definitely an odd side and not just because of the parachuted in Bess. We always knew we were a bit light with the bat and asking Bethell to be Hain for a game was always a bit of an imbalance (although with 2x 30 he wasn't the worst batsman). I'm not going to look it up but how many CC sides look balanced when playing two spinners?

paulbear wrote:

Pity to lose that seeing as Surrey are struggling and could very well lose tomorrow. With a game in hand, it could have made things interesting. Surrey, even if they end up winning are vulnerable at times but seem to have people in their side to get them out of trouble but it can't work every time. That was a strange looking Warwickshire side and it didn't fill me with confidence even before the toss.