After an amazing final day victory at Essex clinched promotion back to Division 1 of the County Championship at the first attempt, Warwickshire go into their final match of the season today knowing that just four bonus points will give them the Division 2 title. That it will be at the expense of Worcestershire is an added spice.
I'm sure though that the team won't be thinking just about where they can get the 4 bonus points, instead they will hopefully be thinking about winning this final home match of the season and giving the Warwickshire faithful some much needed entertainment at home and win their first home match of the season. That this sentance can be written about the likely Division 2 champions speaks volumes for the scoring system in the county championship. The weather is currently overcast by not raining in Moseley, however the forecast is for heavy showers today and tomorrow. It is to be hoped that the rain doesn't totally ruin the entertainment in the last week of the season.
Wednesday, 24 September 2008
4 Points
Monday, 8 September 2008
Even more unlikely
Already however it is looking pretty remote. Should Derby win (or the game end be abandoned) then Warwickshire will still need to win their remaining games against Yorkshire at Headingly (handomly) and Derbyshire. They must then hope that bottom team Northampton, (demonstrable the worst one-day outfit in the country), also beat Yorkshire. Then they MAY overhaul Yorkshire into 3rd place and the chance of a play-off against the 7th placed team in Division 1. However to do this they need to get around 100 runs more than their last two opponents to boost their NRR sufficiently.
However it may be the case that I haven't correctly applied the Hysenberg Uncertainty principle. I'm pretty sure that when calculating Net Run Rate you have to multiply the speed of light by the mass of Andy Moles BEFORE dividing by the Planck constant. Although it might be Avagadro constant, I never was great at astrophysics.
Certainly Giles looks as though he is accepting the inevitable with the squad for Yorkshire, with Clarke included along with Miller and MacLeod. Ant Botha also seems to be fit again following his hip injury.
Saturday, 6 September 2008
Highly Unlikely
I think it is highly unlikely that there will be any play in the Pro40 match between Warwickshire and Essex tomorrow. The general Moseley area was pretty saturated before today, but we have had some torrential rain today and I cannot see how the ground will be playable. I should however point out that you would be well advised to consult some more reliable sources before changing any travel plans.
The Environment Agency currently have a Flood Watch in place on the River Cole and River Rea (which runs past the back of the Hollies Stand). And as a flood modeller, who has recently worked on a model of Birmingham, I can reliably say that the ground itself is at a fairly high risk of fluvial flooding in an moderately extreme event (75 year flood). In which in the entire outfield and outer ground walk-way would be submerged. It is not immediately obvious at ground level, but the topography is such that the outfield is actually lower than the colt's ground as well as the Tally-Ho sports ground, most of Cannon Hill Park and Calthorpe Park, further downstream. Which increases the risk of flooding should the Rea burst its banks.
The indoor school however is several metres higher and would be OK. I would recommend the club invests in some portable temporary flood barriers to erect to keep any flood water off the outfield at the least. But then I am under qualified to offer this opinion as anything other than an educated layman.
Back to the cricket meanwhile and whilst I don't think there is any chance of the ground being flooded tomorrow, the Met Office are showing the forecast as light rain. I think it could well be that this puts pay to any lingering hopes the Bears had of getting promoted in the Pro40, as they needed to win all their remaining matches.
Back in Brum
My stint in Yorkshire has come to an end and now I am firmly ensconced in Moseley with round the clock internet access. This will not however result in any noticeable increase in output or quality, as I am essentially a feckless so and so. Although it does mean I get my post more regularly.
Wednesday, 3 September 2008
How to better appriciate the blog
I appreciate that sometimes it might appear that I almost vomit content onto this blog with no thought to presentation or common sense. However I can assure you that the truth is quite the opposite, although I don't have a home computer for most of the week and have a full time job I still reckon I do a fair job of keeping this thing going (well at least in the past few weeks - the periods of June and July we don't talk about, they have been scrubbed from the annual of the Raggybear). So it is with great annoyance that having spent a long time messing with the HTML/XML code that underpins the blog in order to make it look all nice and have three columns that I have found out that Internet Explorer users are actually seeing the middle column half-way down the page, under the posts.
I have tried several things and cannot seem to fix it. It defies logic and rational argument. Therefore I think it is just easier if you all upgrade to firefox. Its a lot better anyway and you can think of it in terms of your enjoyment of the Raggybear, as like gazing up at the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel in person, as opposed to looking at it on a mobile phone camera.
Get Firefox. Enjoy the Raggybear in all its renaissance glory. Its that simple people.
Tuesday, 2 September 2008
Sometimes I don’t know my own strength
The good doctor carried on playing into his 50’s, as I recall did Wilfred Rhodes and George Hirst, two great heroes of mine. James Southerton didn’t make his test debut until the age of 49. So there are surely plenty of good years left in Hick’s 87 year old bones.
Knowing my luck he’ll start playing in the Warwickshire league and end up dispatching my speculative leg spin over cow corner next year as I hope to make my own debut at the ripe old age of 29.
Whatever he does now though, I wish him good luck I haven’t had much cause to cheer him over the years as a Warwickshire supporter, but I’ve certainly had many occasions to appreciate him.
Embarrassment of Riches?
Never let it be said that Warwickshire are not active behind the scenes. The latest in a long line of what can generously be described as ambitious transfer linkages is former England captain Michael Vaughan.
It is always difficult in these situations to be sure how much of this is pure rumour and how much of it has some modicum of fact in it. However what is inescapable is that Warwickshire have increasingly over the past year and a bit been linked with an increasing cast of stellar names, none of which currently play for them.
Unfortunately, whilst every fan likes to see their club linked with the best in the business there is a very real trap to fall into when those big names don’t materialise. Football clubs such as Newcastle, Villa and to a lesser extent Tottenham and Man City have historically self-promoted themselves as “massive clubs” and enjoy being linked with every Ronaldinio that comes along. However a regular failure to tempt these players has led to these clubs being viewed as a joke and the tag “big club” is used as a taunt by rival fans.
Warwickshire are inextricably moving in this direction. Just off the top of my head recent supposed international signings have included: Vaughan, Darren Gough, Stuart Broad, Mushtaq Ahmed, Rana Naved, Shuan Pollock, Shane Bond, Stephen Flemming, Niall O’Brien and Brian Lara. The fact that the last of them is retired seemed no barrier. This is not to mention the endless conveyor belt of county pros that pass us by like prizes on the Generation Game.
There is a growing frustration among fans that Warwickshire are linked with an array of supposed signings, very few of whom actually materialise. Of course they should pursue top quality signings wherever they can, but as with the aforementioned football clubs, the suspicion begins to take root that the club itself is perpetuating these rumours in order to attempt to please fans.
I can unfortunately only imagine the derision my Yorkshire wife will afford this latest link. I may have to lock myself away with a copy of “100 Greatest Warwickshire Players” to escape her scorn for The Bears machinations.
