Warwickshire begin their last derby match of the summer today against Worcestershire at New Road looking for the victory they need to push claims for a promotion spot.
Since the Twenty20 cup ended Warwickshire have largely been serving up uninspiring cricket, with a host of draws at home. It is one of the quirks of the county championship scoring that a high scoring draw is worth almost as much as a low scoring win. Indeed a team are much better placed to play the cautious game and get a high scoring draw every match, than they are playing fast and loose and winning 50% of their games.
However much the lack of entertainment value is bemoaned however, we must remember the events of last season and Warwickshire’s lack of spine and fight, particularly at Scarborough. The first thing to achieve in a rebuilding job is to lay solid foundations and make the team hard to beat. From there the team can then push on and start turning those draws into wins. There has been some grumblings about the pitches prepared this season at Edgbaston, which have led to not a single win for Warwickshire, however George Dobell in The Post rightly points out that this is on the instructions of Ashley Giles to help ensure the batsmen get time in the middle, and no doubt to play the county points scoring system to their advantage.
Given the relatively even playing field in Division 2 it is difficult to accurately say how many more points Warwickshire will need to get promoted. It could well be that 3 draws will be enough, however a win against Worcestershire this week would certainly go a long way towards improving both their chances and the good mood of the supporters.
Tuesday, 2 September 2008
Luck of the Draw
Saturday, 30 August 2008
Everything but the Kitchen Sink
It shouldn't be forgotten that this time last year Warwickshire capitulated in their second innings at Scarborough and spent the Saturday with their feet up and their heads in their hands. A draw, no matter how dull to watch is statistical progress of a sort.
However it is disappointing that Warwickshire were made to graft for nearly two days, showing signs of difficulty in compiling what Derbyshire have managed in just over a day, against what, on paper, should be a very strong attack. It is a shame they can't roll up that paper, take it with them and bowl on it every week.*
* - Yes Tim; I did make that joke yesterday, but I thought it was a good one so I'm recycling it.
Thursday, 28 August 2008
Members Forum
As mentioned yesterday, due to living in Yorkshire during the week I was not able to attend the members forum. This might be one of the reasons why George Dobell reports that the panel, particularly Colin Povey had an easy ride. Although anyone who knows me will say I'm probably too reticent in person to have stood up and given him a tough questioning anyway!
So unfortunately there is no members perspective available on last night's forum, I do recommend though nipping over to The Post's site and reading the aforementioned George Dobell article, which is pretty comprehensive.
Sly and the family stone
Sly Bailey chairwoman of the Trinty Mirror Group, which I understand to be a little bit like the armies of the Dark Lord Sauron has announced plans to completely shaft local journalism in the Midlands region by effectively merging the three titles currently published into one newsroom.
The cuts have been condemned by the National Union of Jounalists, general secretary Jeremy Dear saying “The NUJ condemns these cuts, which will inevitably hit these papers – and the communities they serve – hard”. They also have an ongoing campaign again the sweeping cuts in local newspapers and associated drops in quality.
In a letter to the Trinty Mirror Group they stated; “The NUJ welcomes new technology but deplores the sledgehammer way it is being introduced as a knee-jerk reaction to the economic down turn, without indicating how this will enhance revenue raising opportunities.
“We do not believe our readers will be best served by reduced numbers of journalists expected to take on extra work which will inevitably leave them less time for news gathering and investigation.”
They are currently balloting their members on industrial action.
The main effect of this on us cricket fans is that cricket correspondents, George Dobell of the Post, and Brian Halford of the Mail are not certain to keep their jobs. Indeed it is believed that the new central newsroom will not have a specialist chief cricket writer at all. Now you may well be thinking, like me, that Sly Bailey appears to have a vendetta against readers of her publications of the magnitude once reserved for Colonel Decker in his single minded pursuit of the A-Team.
Birmingham is lucky at the moment by having two great cricket writers on its daily newspapers. It is no secret that they and I have not always agreed on every issue. Particularly around their freedom of reporting, a general point in sports writing that was the subject of a debate by the Journalism Leaders Forum earlier in the year. However the quality of their writing has never been in doubt. With the increasing dominance of 24 news channels and sports websites in breaking sports news and results it is becoming more important for news providers and journalists to differentiate themselves and to provide something unique. I feel that in the sphere of cricket writing for newspapers it is to give opinion and to help spark debate (even if it is only internal!) and to provide thought provoking pieces.
Cricket writing and journalism differs from that of other sports in that the game of cricket is about so much more than the result and how it was achieved. It is a psychological game, almost as much as a physical one. It is not enough to report a cricket game in a football reporting style, which is far too often limited to who kicked the ball to who, in what minute. We, the cricket watching and cricket loving public are interested in why the batsman failed or succeeded, why one bowler was able to exploit the pitch and another not. We are almost as fascinated by why Tony Lock only took one wicket as we are by Jim Laker taking 19 at the other end.
One of the reasons this blog was set up was due to the combination of the lack of a fan site, but also the lack of coherent news on WCCC outside of the individual TMG websites. If the quality of cricket coverage on the Post and Mail declines I am not sure how anyone will find out anything about the club at all. (I certain won’t be able to crib as many stories!)
Both of our regional cricket correspondents are different and equally important. Brian Halford’s blog really is a treasure. Much like Blowers on TMS his offbeat style is not for everyone (but I personally am I fan of both), but he is providing a fantastic service, my friend Tim on hearing of the potential job cuts said ‘I wouldn't get much idea about what is going on in the average Warwickshire game without Brian Halford's blog.’ And I think there would be many, many people, myself included, in the same boat. George Dobell meanwhile is proving that investigative journalism is alive and well in sports reporting and he routinely brings issues to light and pulls disparate facts and stories together to paint a larger picture of issues at the club. He is almost single-handedly keeping the public informed on the ground developments.
Both journalist have recently, and consistently produced thought and debate provoking editorials of the highest standard and I have no doubt whatsoever that should the Trinty Mirror Group dispense with the services of one or both, their, and our loss, will be a national newspaper or website’s gain.
For another, (similar!) take on this issue you can head over to Chris' WCCC Blog and read his thoughts. Not surprisingly he is as aghast at these potential cuts as I am.
There is some organised resistance to this move on the various forums; the current recommended course of action is to email the respective editors at:
steve.dyson@birminghammail.net
Marc.Reeves@birminghampost.net
Giving them your thoughts on the impending job cuts and the effect on cricket coverage.
Wednesday, 27 August 2008
Member Down
Unfortunately as I live in North Yorkshire at the moment I am not going to be able to attend the member's forum tonight. Hopefully I will be able to get the gist and the main goings on from one or both of the forums and report it here in due course.
Very frustrating, but I am only living up here until the end of next week before being firmly entrenched back in Moseley, a mere stone's throw from Edgbaston. Not that I would condone such a course of action.
More Sites
I'm disappointed that in the course of hoovering up news for as diverse places as structural engineering weekly and the Napier Gazette*, I have missed what is right under my nose.
There are two excellent refuges for fans of WCCC in the unofficial forum and a blog by a guy called Chris (windy on bears forums).
The forum is excellent and as it is unofficial you can go crazy and say all sorts of stuff for example I bet I could say about how the stewards on the back gate near cannon hill park are drunk on power and refuse to let upstanding members from Moseley in unless they are members of the executive club. Which probably would get removed from the official forum on the WCCC website. Why I would want to say such a thing though I'm not sure.
Chris' blog is also great and he provides match info much quicker than I do and has a nice recuring feature in "Ian Bell Watch", with a firm Warwickshire slant on England matches.
Both highly recommended and in the main link list to the right.
* - actually names of newspapers changed to protect their identity
Friday, 22 August 2008
More Pensioners than U-16's
Yesterday the Office of National Statistics revealed that for the first time ever there are more pensioners than under 16's in the County Championship.
They have shown that the population of young cricketers has been in decline since 1995 and for the first time ever has dropped below the number of county pros of a pensionable age.
The fastest growing age group is the over 80's, who currently make up around 4.5% of the players on county books. They put this down to the result of improvements in mortality at older ages over the second half of the 20th century and the continued success of Graeme Hick.
Mervyn Kohler, special adviser at Help the Aged, said: "The key task for policy makers going forward is to ensure that older people can increasingly play an active role in our ageing [county championship].
Ageing Middlesex Twirler Shaun Udal may have said; "Its nice to feel part of the community and keep myself active. I like to do word jumbles as well to keep my mind alert".
The Raggy Bear salutes our ageing entertainers and hopes for many more years of cricketing service from them. Its much better than a bunch of hoodies.
