Amazing to think how fast we were scoring whereby 220 was definitely on and yet no 6's. Did the side as a whole look at the way we have lost games recently by failing to clear the ropes whilst trying to hit 6's. I do not believe in any curses, different opposition and different ways of losing have been our downfall. In 2023, we just never got going with the bat v Essex and were 20 short, last year we should have won with time to spare but kept giving catches whilst failing to score 6's and yesterday, we might have bowled too short too often but we never made that much of the good start. Garton at 7 is too high and often when you see T20 games lost, it is that middle-order problem of not moving the score on quickly enough, Hain, Barnard and Garton combined made 38 off 36 balls. I don't even believe it is a psychological thing, just that we find ways to lose by somehow 'Clamming Up' and not playing our natural game.

It shows my lack of confidence now, as I hadn't a ticket for finals day, I had one lined up ready to pay once the game was done but even with that many needed, I still thought it could all go wrong. Good job I didn't say "That's it, in the bag, here we go". I have watched a finals-day years ago and it is not the same when your team are not involved. Come on Northamptonshire, I really do not like any of the others, especially lucky Hampshire.

Always difficult decision because you have to have Barnard bowling one of the last few overs unless you bring him back earlier for one but the way the scoring was at the end, would it have made much difference? Had he have bowled over number 16-18, the same thing might have happened. Either way, not enough runs and 200+ looked easily on and at one point, I thought 230+.

We are in danger of not getting to 200 when it looked like 220 about 30 minutes ago.

We have often made a total 'Balls-Up', playing ordinary sides at home and messing up big-time so no reason why we shouldn't actually win away against a side who appear to reach Finals-Day quite often. Any bowler might have a great season-best 4-over spell that is the difference between a win and a loss. We have nothing to lose and it cannot surely be any worse than that awful game last year in the quarter-final.

This is all getting a bit highbrow for this site. Having said that, I was reading a little bit of Wilfred Owen yesterday. Get us 'eh!

The problem is, he is playing so infrequently that if he does play and it'd one-day games, he has to get on with it and has no time to build an innings. With the gaps between games as well, he is never going to get form anywhere. Where would we fit him into the CC side and I don't really think it's fair to drop anyone just to put an England player in the team. I would definitely not take him to Australia and he needs a whole season of county cricket, too many players now are playing too little amount of cricket, frequent cricket keeps you fresh and if you hit good form, you develop the knack of knowing your game inside out.

He came as a big surprise, I remember his debut v Lancashire and with a name like Pollock, I thought, "Another Kolpack find" but he was amazing and got us off to some flyers. Eventually, side managed to find his weakness which was to bring on a spinner and watch him get caught very soon. I hope he finds a chance to shine somewhere else.

I think a lot of s-called 'County Cricketers don't care about playing CC games as long as they make some sort of name for themselves in short format games and can play around the world in the various T20 leagues, making good money and any sort of longer games world wear them out whereas a few 4-over bowling spells are not going to tax them much over the winter and they appear happy to earn their living this way.

Ridiculous if you consider that they both obviously have contracts but I would love to know what they say, I mean, both could only end up playing 14 T20 games so 14 days cricket isn't really hard work.

In the first Test, England needed 287 to win and finished on 167-3 from 65 overs. I know it was a different era but 4.4 runs per over and it doesn't appear they even wanted to chase it.

Freddie Calthorpe, he was captain and a decent allrounder, distantly related to Henry Blofeld.

It annoyed me that the club name wasn't on the side of the building and maybe that's why people who know absolutely nothing about cricket assume there is a team called Edgbaston who play there like my uncle once did. I wrote to the club asking if the name could be put somewhere on the building like it should be and wrote, "Can you imagine Anfield without Liverpool F.C. on the front of the building".

The changing to 'Metropolitan' areas in the mid-70's created all sorts of talk about where people were associated with. I live in Halesowen which was Worcestershire so had no problem with its change to West Midlands but cities and towns that were in counties, should still be associated with those counties, for instance, would one of our old players Chris Old, have been allowed to play for Yorkshire if these counties had been changed 10 years earlier as he was from Middlesbrough which then became 'County Cleveland'. I think Chris Old would still regard himself as a Yorkshireman and form nowhere else just because some numpties decided we needed to change things.

I tend to think that having a 'City' name doesn't always sit well if you have members who are also football fans and don't want to associate with elements of having to shout out "Come on Birmingham". This was an argument for not not putting out a team called 'Manchester Originals' in that OTHER inferior competition as certain Lancashire fans pointed out that they were form other parts of the county and didn't want to be associated with a team with Manchester in the title. I can quite understand. Did being called 'Birmingham Bears' drive away a few fans from supporting the team as they didn't want to be associated with Birmingham. I have no idea if this was the case but I could understand certain people being against it.

That's a good return from Davies and that strike rate would get you to 180 if the whole team batted at the same rate. A few of us discussed Ross Whiteley yesterday and why he keeps getting T20 contracts and his strike rate of 136.36 would only get an average score of just over 163. We have good strike rates for quite a few batsmen but our bowling does worry me at times as we do leak a few runs and players like Mouseley have conceded a few compared to last season. We must tighten up when we play Somerset as they have some really fast scorers in their side.

Wasn't he in Auf Wiedersehen Pet, "I'll have to ask Brenda"

2010 was annoying on the basis that as Neil Carter always said, "If you finish top of your group, you should go to T20 finals day", just like Yorkshire and Worcestershire have done in this year's Metro Bank but we yet again finished top of our group, won 11, lost 4 and Hampshire scraped through buy 0.2 of a run after losing half their games and by the time they won the final, their record was won 11, lost 8 and we had won 11, lost 5, hardly seems fair that you should saunter through but have your hard work ruined by one game. Yes, the 2012 final also haunts me. Bell who had been superb, hit a full-toss straight to a fielder on the boundary. Carter should never have gone out to bat before Patel on the basis that Jeetan had plenty of innings recently unlike Carter who was rusty and hadn't batted that much recently, Blackwell (For a big hitter) farted about too much and I sat there thinking, "Carter, Just get something on it and run or crack it through the infield". He did neither. Despite winning the title that season, the season was ruined as it was the very last game of the season which was unusual.

I always hated being called Birmingham Bears but Bears is better and I think eventually we will be called Warwickshire Bears which isn't too bad. As for the pavilion, it isn't really that popular, massively cold at times (It has been called the 'Icebox' for a while), which is why so many people (Mostly members), sit at the opposite end. It is functional but I would have preferred something a bit more aesthetically pleasing to the eye. When we won the title in 2021, there were not many in there and 80% of people were over the other side.

There was a period from the mid 1980's until the mid 1990's when it was almost impossible for Warwickshire to lose to Hampshire in the CC but I doubt that every time we played them, we thought it would be a nailed-on win, at some point it had to stop. From 1981 up until the Natwest semi-final in 1989, we had not beaten Worcestershire in ANY competition. I doubt before that semi-final being played at a packed Edgbaston (Wouldn't have been full if it was so obvious that Worcestershire would win) that it was looked on as an obvious win for our neighbours. At some point, a run of good results has to stop, it won't continue indefinitely so all the 'They Always Do' isn't really a good reason for saying we would lose to them had we have played them yesterday.