mad
Member
Highveld wrote:
ECB regulations state that games should be played within the county, or at a venue with established links.
Kidderminster and Stourbridge are both in Worcestershire, so are not viable options, likewise I can't see Derbyshire agreeing to Warwickshire use their ground in Derby.
The only ground in Worcestershire that Warwickshire could legitimately use would be Barnt Green, which is a wonderful club ground, one of my favourites, and has an excellent wicket, however it does not have the facilities needed to host a first class or list A game.
Cleethorpes have hosted Notts, Sedburgh hosts rained off Lancs matches, Colwyn Bay and Aberystwyth hosts Glamorgan, Scarborough semi-regularly hosts Durham these days, even Yorkshire with all their facilities have played home matches in Derbyshire
As one off's to ease fixture congestion at Edgbaston Derby/New Road (which was slated to host a game in 2019) are viable options
England have 15 test matches in 2024 and yet there are still noises from within the ECB on about reducing the number of matches counties play. Seems illogical. Give county championship August back and outgrounds can flourish again
It is rather a pity that there is no viable option at present. Be lovely to have a town centre setting in a tourist honeypot like York somewhere within the county of Warwickshire. Just a shame that there is no such facility in Coventry, Warwick, Leamington, Rugby, Tamworth or Nuneaton.
One option would be to look outside the county. A location within easy reach via direct rail line and a town centre setting. Kidderminster would do for a one off. Maybe even Stourbridge or slightly out of town but Himley might suffice. Or how about further afield Derby or Banbury or Cheltenham or perhaps take a game to Brum on sea Weston-Super-Mare?. Trouble is it's not the 1980's anymore a fixture at Brum-on-sea wouldn't be the kind of pull it might've been 40 years ago.
I know Staffordshire CCC quite like using Himley for their minor county games and Banbury is an excellent minor county ground. These ideas wouldn't please or attract many spectators (unless scheduled for fixture versus Northants or Gloucestershire) but it might assist the ground staff at Edgbaston and may pave the way for a more regular slot within the county once Kenilworth's new ground for example is completed
Moeen and Woakes would improve the side in the same way Sibley and Burns availability have bolstered Surrey's. Unfortunately we're not going to get them back I don't think. We're starting to be affected to a similar extent to how Lancs are traditionally affected
Think part of our issue is the back up players particularly the batting are more white ball oriented than red. That's despite offloading Hose, Lamb and Pollock recently. We don't have that depth as a Championship squad. Again down to the schedule and prioritisation which seems to have shifted across the game to be fair but especially at Edgbaston.
I don't see a need for wholesale changes to the Championship squad but I think post season there will be significant changes and in leadership positions potentially. Won't happen but we could do with being safe with 2-3 games spare and then blood a couple of the youngsters from the 2nds. Promising to see Johal is close again and be nice to see Che Simmons on a flat deck for example but I'm thinking more of the middle order batters George Maddy, Kai Smith or the kids we've got who open Hamza and/or Amir might be worth a go down the order.
It's a huge step up which is why it'd be nice to be safe with a couple of games to go or (not likely to happen I guess) I'd prefer they scrapped relegation went back to 1 County Championship and we could blood these kids now - we ain't winning the title and it would be an opportune time to blood youngsters mid season rather than having to wait until late September exposing to gnarly pitches
Highveld wrote:
How many cricketing I Mohammed's are there?
This is the scorecard for the U18's game in Wales, which started on Monday https://live.nvplay.com/ecb/?tab=m_scorecard#m3eaa125a-4399-4d49-ac28-79b2a84c5949
SACA vs Warwickshire 2nd XI one dayer.
SACA 303/8
Ismail Mohammad 141*
Amazing knock from the young lad
BristolBear wrote:
In regards to out ground cricket I just think some places do it better than others. Scarborough is excellent, I’ve really enjoyed Cheltenham, Arundel and the old Whitgift festival in the past. Liverpool, Guildford and Merchant Taylors are really rather poor.
But equally, there are some grounds where what’s put on for fans during CC matches is shocking. Old Trafford is very inhospitable, almost everything closed, stands closed. Bristol not much better in my experience. Whereas the Oval, Hove and Chelmsford are very pleasant with full access, plenty of amenities or easy to walk down the road to grab a bite at lunch or tea.
Agree it's nigh on impossible to set one up from scratch. The legacy ones that have stood test of time are best. Colwyn Bay is sadly not used any longer. Agree about Hove and the Oval. I think Edgbaston is friendly and welcoming especially the personnel (it was good to see a few familiar Edgbaston based stewards up at Old Trafford helping out with their test match last week) who work there it can appear slightly drab in the background for a county match but I'd be happy to forgo one home fixture perhaps every other year to have use of an outground. Someone could spend a year setting it up and then repeat it the following year switching formats. They'd probably have to risk a One day Cup game first and then try a Championship game there the following year a bit like Yorkshire did when they set up their York fixture just before COVID
Part of the charm of outground cricket was/is the slight discomfort/alternative views
Of course with the scarcity of fixtures these days that presents issues. When you had 8 or 9 home championship games per season (and more than that before my time) an outground or two of festival cricket was viable for all counties.
Sadly it is a sign of the reductive and closed minded attitude of some administrators in our game that want to remove the counties altogether and replace with big city entities. Festival cricket was an important part of the branding of the game and widening it's appeal beyond the obsessives and towards the curious. It's absence directly leads to poorer crowds at county matches in general and dwindling memberships everywhere bar Surrey and Somerset. It mirrors the disappearence of the game from free to air, from our state schools and from coffee machine banter in the workplace.
Festival county cricket through the peak summer months or this futuristic 'demonstration sport level' of cricket this lot are trying to shove down our throats? Your choice.
I think a bit of discomfort ain't so bad
BosworthBear wrote:
If they have to reserve wickets for the Hundred why on earth didn't they plan ahead and use an outground?
Especially during the school holidays.
Unfortunately we seem Edgbaston obsessed these days!
Indeed.
The ECB need to shoulder some of the blame for this. Gary Barwell has clearly been instructed to reserve several available decent pitches for the garbage that's to come in August. Imagine the NFL scrapping their fixtures in November and having 4 rounds of 'flag football' plonked there instead
Think there'll be plenty of play. Mostly light showers bit more thundery day 1 but BBC saying low percentage chance most of the 4 days so plenty time to get a result. And importantly doesn't seem to be anything significant overnight that could hold up start of play
Yes thought his contribution in that Kent game was excellent.
He sounds very clued up. With the sound effects I'm not keen on any of them - but it is slogball after all - he probably doesn't get that British sense of humour and the pantomime stuff in general just doesn't seem to land well with many Aussies who have just that little bit of a 'German' sense of humour about them. It's weird because in some ways Australian society is a long way ahead of the UK in terms of attitudes towards equality and respect for all, their women's sports teams professionalism a decade or more ahead of here etc... All this despite the country, certainly it's authorities being slightly more right wing than the UK traditionally has been but in other ways it seems a throwback to the 1970's/1980's at times even after twenty five years exposure to the Barmy Army their efforts at creating atmosphere within games is limited - constant adverts for Milo between overs at test matches notwithstanding - although I think the Barmy Army isn't these days what it was and has become ever so slightly generic and slightly crass at the edges - mirroring wider society sadly - (Ingerlund etc...)
See what Khawaja has said about the ashes crowds. He does have a point imho. When fringe elements of the barmy army are just using the c-word at will it's gone away from what it was for so long a lovely fun way to keep England test side going during bleak times. Sadly once again it's a mirror of UK society and how it has deteriorated really awfully the last 15-20-40 years or so. Then again I'm now an old guy and can recall far worse in bay 13 at the SCG
You can blame Joe public but to me it's the stakeholders that have inculcated this type of fan behaviour at the cricket. We've seen it at blast games with the cheapo tickets when the footy isn't on but obvs people paying 150 notes for a test ticket are no better
They have a very decent recent-ish record at Edgbaston. Usually in April or May with Jimmy available
Interestingly from one of Maxwell's comments in that BBC comms piece it does appear to be the case that they sounded him out about possibly playing in the Essex County Championship game - the one that followed the Blast away games at Durham, Yorkshire and then the Friday night Bears v Pears derby.
Slightly disappointing to hear he rebuffed the idea - seems to suggest he's gone "no chance am I playing a short game Tuesday, Thursday & Friday and then a proper game Sunday to Wednesday".
duplicate post
Interesting chat before the final on 5 live extra. From 10 mins;
https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m001nvfq
Glen Maxwell spoke well on a range of topics although I think he overegged the "burn out" point a tad
Does the Hundred justify itself if all the best players in it are no better than the players on show at Finals Day in the Blast?
And what is the Hundred's impact on the England 50-over ODi side going forwards if the next generation of England white ball players aren't in it but instead playing a random 100 ball format nobody gives a monkey's about?
SC_Bear wrote:
First time I've felt quite resentful on finals day. Seems perverse that the 2 other white ball comps played over a shorter period guarantee the group winners a semi-final place whilst the only reward for group winners in this comp is the same as coming 2nd i.e a home QF. Not suggesting we'd have gone on to win it but I'm finding it very hard to maintain any interest in an all south finals day brought about by the current format.
Trust me you'd not have wanted to be sat there today it was alright in the shelter of the family stand square of the wicket but soon as I moved round to the traditionally sunny seats christ the wind was chilly. I lasted till half time of this final game
Sitting here just highlights for me how many top county players we as Warwickshire members just don't get to see very often any more compared to 20 years ago. You used to see them all pretty much over the course of a two year cycle. Now not the case at all. Think they could do away with the groups stages for this and just have a proper 17 match league of it with top 4 into finals day and if 17 is too many play some of them abroad pre season
Mikkyk wrote:
What a session, is this where our CC season is reginited?
Have to say that 6th wicket decision looked poor. At the very least hit him outside the line.
Not sure about that. Seemed to square the batter up he's missed the ball and struck him perhaps umpires call on off stump. Hard to see from the video but might have just clipped the front pad before thudding into the back pad at which point it looks like it's hitting outside the line but that fraction of a second is ommited from the frames in the video. I'd say it's close enough and defnitely not too high. Reasonable enough decision. Labuschagne got one 2 years ago off Darren Stevens down there everyone went mad about but again to me it looked close enough to be given. Batter has little to complain about other than he's just missed the ball and the pads have stopped it clipping off stump
Certainly makes sense if they're only going to show 2 QF's live in future.
The other way is to use a system similar to the Big Bash and have a preliminary final between the two group winners - this season that would've been Somerset v Warwickshire. Winner of that goes straight to finals day. Loser gets another chance as they play in the elimination games (like quarter final but only need three of them) to see which three sides join the winner of the first game
Sounds complicated but it rewards group winners with two bites at reaching Finals Day
Cynically one might suggest they don't want county championship games on during test matches because it might affect ticket sales for the test matches.
I hope you're right though and next year because there are two tests in August fingers crossed there'll be at least two rounds of Championship Cricket too in August, ideally three