Following Warwickshire this season has had as many ups and downs as my day’s walking in the Peak District last Saturday. Much like that Saturday, the ups are spectacular and memorable and the downs - whilst dispiriting at the time – are soon forgotten. In the Championship colossal victories against Somerset, Worcester (twice J) and Notts have been punctuated by humbling defeats at the hands of Durham (twice) and Lancashire. In the T20, two good away wins were followed by posting our lowest ever total against Northants at Edgbaston. In the 4 day game, much like last year, there looks to be very little danger that we’ll be involved in many draws this Summer. With Somerset looking like they are getting their act together and our recent conquerors Durham and Lancashire both looking strong, my early prediction is we will do battle with Notts for a fourth place finish in Division One. This will be a marked improvement from last year’s flirtation with relegation and a good platform for next season. I’m not writing our challenge off completely… anyone who knows me will testify that it only takes one good win to bring out my optimistic tendencies. I am very happy to see Jeetan Patel in for the T20 (he turned in some match winning performances a couple of years back) but the lack of a top quality spin bowler in the Championship is a big miss – if only we’d held on to Imran Tahir but he does change his club (and country) more often as The Sugarbabes line- up (struggling for similes today).
My own Cricket viewing and blogging has been badly disrupted by my other past time (most of you call it a job). Working for a North East company, I should have been able to manipulate my diary to take in the away games at Durham and Yorkshire but unfortunately I need to be wherever the world of Gentlemen’s casual fashion dictates. I did manage to get to take my seat for the disastrous display against Northants on Saturday where my own family’s take on fashion was in full effect. My Mum, her husband, my brother and me all sat in (almost matching) Warwickshire caps… We looked a bit like we were on day release from a mental asylum and if pushed for an answer, most observers would have probably picked out the 12 year- old George as the Care Worker in charge. One for the family album. He was fresh from having a pre- match brunch with the players as part of the grizzly’s membership I bought him for Christmas.
I was deflated and, to begin with, quite let down by our batting performance but during the 5 minute cycle home through Canon Hill Park I had a moment of quiet reflection. Northants had batted in great conditions. In Johan Botha, they had a World Class T20 slow bowling option. With the rain threatening throughout our innings, we had to try and keep up with an imposing Duckworth Lewis par score. Losing regular top order wickets in our attempt to do so left us in a very bad place. If the weather had been fine we would have been able to play ourselves into the innings before piling on the runs with wickets in hand later on. Lessons to be learnt? I guess in T20 you have to play the opposition and the weather in equal measures and not get obsessed by the latter… But then if it had started raining and we were ten runs shy of D/L with 10 wickets in hand, I’d be saying much the opposite. I still think this competition is our best chance of silver wear this year so we need to put this behind us and move on.
Away from Edgbaston, the International season has begun. Trotty, who couldn’t buy a run for us, can’t stop scoring for England and Ian Bell is simply the best batsman in the world. Sri Lanka were demolished in the final hour of the Cardiff Test by a three man bowling attack who, with the addition of Stephen Finn, looked subsequently toothless on a flat Lords pitch this week. Hopefully the re-introduction of Jimmy Anderson (sooner rather than later) will be the simple remedy required. The declaration came horribly late for a team vying to be called World Number 1 and who had performed so emphatically to win the previous Test. For me, the Australian team of the late 90’s and early part of this decade are the bench mark. At Cardiff we lived up to it but at Lords we fell short.
Finally, I’d just like to bid farewell to Mohammed Yousaf who offered some decent knocks, some comical fielding and caused me to suffer extreme beard envy during in his stint with the club. As a thank you to Mohammed for his time at the club I have chosen to name a Teddy Bear after him which I hope will help me to remember him for many years to come.
