Tom Allin: a 20yo fast bowler from Devon has been signed on a two year summer contract. He is currently studying sports coaching and management at Cardiff UCCE. He played 4 of Devon's five Minor Counties matches last year and took 33 wickets for North Devon in the Devon League Premier Division. He was clocked at 85mph in the nets at Warwickshire, so certainly seems a promising prospect.
Monde Zondeki: Ashley Giles is still hopeful of having Zondeki avaliable for most of the season, dispite his call up for South Africa's current tour. Warwickshire are waiting to see if there are any developments before looking for a replacement. In the first match of the current tour he did not play in the team, so there is a possibility he will be avaliable for more matches than was initially feared following his call-up.
Majid Haq: He impressed enough on his trial with Warwickshire last week to earn an extended trial in May. He is now touring Nambia with Scotland and will join up with Warwickshire on his return. He said in an interview with The Herald; "They've asked me to come back for another week in May, probably to play some games for the Second XI," he said. "I'm hoping something will come of it but Scotland definitely still comes first, at least until there's something signed. But the first week down there was good. We spent a lot of time in training doing sprinting work which was a real change for me."
Tim Southee: This one almost slipped past me, but the teenage New Zealand bowler may be joining up with the Bears later in the summer. Last week in the Telegraph, Charles Randall reported that Andy Moles, Tim's coach at Northern Districts, has recommended that the teenager links up with Warwickshire following the conclusion of Nez Zealand's tour of England. He may be being lined up to replace Zondeki in the event he is called up to the South Africa team, which would fit in pretty well.
Others: Nick James and Ian Westwood have recovered from a broken foot and thumb respectively and Boyd Rankin is still making progress on his stress fracture, but is not yet fully fit
Monday, 31 March 2008
Bowling Developments and rumours
Pre-Season Game on
The Worcester News reported a few hours ago that the New Road ground is fit to host tommorrow's pre-season friendly between Worcestershire and Warwickshire. The first game to be played at the ground since the floods of June last year.
The match starts at 11am and is free admission.
The squad for the game has been announced on the Warwickshire website as;
Maddy, Carter, Westwood, Trott, Troughton, Poonia, Frost, Botha, Groenewald, Daggett, Anyon, Woakes, Parker.
I've been a little quiet over the past week, but normal service has now been resumed ahead of the start of Warwickshire's pre-season proper.
Sunday, 23 March 2008
Old Boys honoured & Westwood Vice Captain
Five members of the all-conquering 1990's Warwickshire side have been awarded honorary life membership of the club.
Ashley Giles, Dougie Brown, Asif Din, Keith Piper & Dominic Ostler have all been given the prestigious award, which is a nice way for the club to show their appreciation.
The practicalities though seem a little odd; Giles is director of cricket, Brown is head of the academy, Piper is the 2nd XI coach & Din is on the cricket committee. It would seem slightly churlish to charge any of them to attend a match, or bar them from the Tom Dollery suite. Perhaps Ostler had some trouble getting into a game with a gate-man last season, prompting his award of life membership, whereupon the other 4 had to be brought up to same level to avoid any unpleasantness. - another spurious conspiracy theory bought to you by The Raggy Bear.
In other news Ian Westwood has been awarded the vice captaincy for next season, at face value it seems a surprising choice, given his relative youth and lack of prowess in the one-day game. However I think it illustrates the dynamics in the current squad, and how transitional it is. Based on availability and experience (and discounting new signings) the only real candidates would seem to be: Anyon, Powell, Trott, Troughton & Westwood, and of those probably only the last three are serious candidates.
In itself it looks like a brave and forwarding thinking move, however it will only take a few injuries before Warwickshire are putting out a virtual youth side in some matches, something I'll look at my pre-season review over the next few weeks.
Friday, 21 March 2008
Members again
After months of deliberation and spreadsheet, calenders and long-range weather forecasts, I've decided to sign-up for membership again for the upcoming season.
Gemma is excited by the prospect of being able to sit inside and read the paper when she is dragged to a Friends Provident Zonal match on a drizzly April afternoon.
I have decided that although the Blog is The Raggy Bear, calling myself "the raggy bear" make me sound like a dishevelled hairy homosexual. Which could be construed as misrepresentation, so I'm going to stop it.
Zondeki to arrive late
Events outside of their control have conspired to weaken the bowling attack for at least the opening game of the season against Worcestershire, and possibly beyond, as Monde Zondeki was called up to South Africa's tour of India.
While it appears to be good news for the player, it is not quite so good for Warwickshire as they lose arguably their only truly fast bowler. The call comes following another ugly dispute in South African cricket over race and quotas. Andre Nell was dropped from the tour party in favour of Charl Langeveldt, purely on grounds that Langeveldt is mixed-race and therefore fulfils one of the mandatory "coloured" player slots in a touring party. Upset by this turn of events Langeveldt withdrew from the side himself, saying "I have always fought for a place in the team but I don’t want to be put there because of my colour".
In 2002 South Africa, under Ray Mali stating they were moving from the divisive quota system to a softer "target" system, but since Mali stepped up to the ICC Presidency following the untimely death of Percy Son, the CSA have moved back towards stricter quotas of 7 "coloured" players in a touring party of 15, or 6 in a party of 14. The new, more combative head of the CSA, Norman Arendse, is keen on the quota system, but this is not a popular position and resulted in a recent cautious vote of confidence from the General Council of Cricket South Africa in his leadership
Following Langeveldt's withdrawal Zondeki was called up as a replacement into the side and has said he was overjoyed at the call; “It is nice to be rewarded for all the hard work I have put in this season,” he commented. “I wasn’t expecting it quite yet but I will grab every opportunity that I get. I toured Sri Lanka in 2005, so I do have some experience of the conditions on the sub-continent.”
Reports from South Africa though are mixed, with the main focus, understandably being on the circumstances of his call, which is unfortunate for a player who was the leading wicket taker in the South African domestic season. Independent Online, a South African news site is particularly scathing of the policy of quotas and comments that the call may not be in Zondeki's best interests, notably in the article "Zondeki is a quota player and he knows it".
Meanwhile Warwickshire are left to plan for Zondeki's absence from certainly the first match against Worcestershire and likely for the duration of South Africa's tour of England.
Saturday, 15 March 2008
VIDEO: Brian Lara 501
Going back in time to happier days at Edgbaston. Documentary style report on Brian Lara's 501 with a fair few highlights.
An embarrasing retraction
Deary me, no sooner I am crowing about the cutting edge news on the Raggy Bear than I'm forced to print a retraction!
An anonymous poster pointed out the follow article from the Post back in November where the possibility of Majid Haq coming on trial was first reported. So I can't claim to be the first to break the story; I'm the second to break his imminent arrival this week (after the Paisley Express where I poached the story from obviously!) and no-one can take that away from me (apart from possibly some other Paisley based newspaper without an internet presence - its a minefield this blogging lark, I'll be banned in China next).