November 2008 Archives

Warwickshire expect to have appointed an "assistant coach" to Ashley Giles by the end of next week.

Interviews will take place during the week for the new position which has been created by the merging of the existing jobs of Elite Player Coach and 2nd XI coach.

Dougie Brown and Keith Piper, the occupiers of the merged jobs, are among those to be interviewed for the new post which has been advertised only internally.

The Bears insist the staffing reduction has not been forced upon them by financial constraints - indeed with Ashes dosh already rolling in, the picture is fairly healthy - but is designed to streamline coaching operations and build continuity between academy, 2nd XI and 1st XI.

At 5.30pm on Thursday July 26, 1956, the first day of the fourth Test between England and Australia ("Laker's Test") at Old Trafford, drinks were taken out to the players.

It was the only drinks interval of that entire Ashes series during a damp, chilly summer.

Watching from the pavilion as the Australian fielders and English batsmen David Sheppard and Peter May took a slurp was Alan Oakman. He was to take five catches in the match, supplying more than a quarter of Jim Laker's 19 wickets.

Meanwhile, animal-lovers please note. The cold snap which began last night poses danger to pets.

"It is easy for us to wrap up warm and add layers on to keep us snug," an RSPCA spokesperson commented today. "But it is not that simple for our pets."

I mentioned this last night to my Uncle Ron. He has been having a few problems lately with his missus who has grown so fond of her pet pig she has taken to keeping it in the bedroom. "Disgusting," Ron said. "It's not nice and it's not healthy. It stinks to high heaven in there."

"Why don't you open a window?" I asked. "Oh, I can't do that," he replied. "All me pigeons would get out."

Early last week the counties were advised that the fixtures would be with them early this week with a view to them being made public later this week. Then late last week another message went round to say this would not be the case. No further missives have been sent.

The delay stems from West Indies having replaced Sri Lanka as the early-season touring team. It would appear logical to simply slot West Indies into the fixtures allocated to Sri Lanka but evidently it is not that straightforward.

The delay has considerable knock-on inconvenience for the counties because all next season's planning, including Second XI fixtures, stem from the first-team fixture programme.

On a different note, stopping off at a cafe in Cullompton, Devon, recently I ordered a sausage sandwich. I then made the terrible mistake of looking inside said victual to discover that the "sausage" was the most frightening, shapeless, festering slab of grey, greasy gunge in the history of the culinary world. Doggedly, I forced it down and felt queasy for the rest of the day as it languished down there, impervious to anything my digestive systrem could throw at it.

Competition time. Can anybody challenge that as the least pleasant eating experience of all time? First prize: Dinner for two at a little place I know in Cullompton.

...lasted for 578 days and Mads the Skip will be remembered for:

His superb 130 at Northampton to lift the Bears to a spectacular championship win last April.

Giving Tony Frost a bowl on the first morning of a championship match. Frost promptly ripped his first ball past the outside-edge. "So nearly a stroke of genius", reflected Maddy.

Happily fulfilling his captain's obligations, after a Twenty20 win at Edgbaston, by chatting to Radio WM broadcasting legend Mike Taylor only, to his evident bemusement, to be yanked away by the snarling, glowering figure of Mark Greatbatch. Snarling and glowering...after a win?!

Each of the 977 dot balls that he faced in the championship in 2008.

His big-hearted five for 63 against Durham at Chester-le-Street in 2007 when other heads were dropping and the freefall towards Division Two was gathering pace.

His laconic, good-humoured reaction when, addressing the press after a match at Hove, he was hit squarely on the sweater by the deposit of a seagull. (The bird, it is understood, was aiming for 'Batch).

He was at the helm for a big improvement, year on year, in the Bears' championship cricket in 2008, culminating in promotion.

He was at the helm while the team remained very hit and miss in one-day cricket in 2008.

Some nifty spells of Barry Wood-type medium-pace, perhaps deployed a little more often in bowler-friendly conditions in the champo than when the flak was flying in one-day cricket.

Darren's unfailing courtesy and decency - even when driving home from hospital still getting his head round the news that he would be out for the best part of two months with a broken thumb.

Good man. Good team man. Good cricketer.

Captaincy rating: 6.387610768565194478787309 out of 10.

In nine Test matches against Australia, MJK Smith averaged only 19.07 with the bat, with a highest score of just 41.

Ian Westwood replacing Darren Maddy as captain is an interesting change. A correct one, I reckon, albeit entailing some risk.

Maddy is a fine cricketer and a thoroughly decent bloke but I found his captaincy a bit baffling at times. His bowling changes in one-day cricket were sometimes hard to understand, not least when key bowlers were left with overs unused at the end of an innings. The Bears won promotion in the championship - a great effort - but did not advance much, if at all, in one-day cricket where captaincy has greater direct influence on shaping matches.

In the champo, Darren has gone down in history as the only Warwickshire captain ever to give Tony Frost a first-class bowl. None of his predecessors - not Tom Dollery, not Bob Wyatt nor even the mavericks Dermot Reeve or Frank Foster - did that. He also persisted with an idiosyncratic conviction that, bowling on the first morning of a four-day game, Jonathan Trott was the man to nip one out before lunch. A hard theory to support with evidence, that one.

Warwickshire won the Second Division title under him, however. And he played an important role, with bat and ball, in that achievement.

Up in the First Division, against much better opposition, it will be a big challenge for Westwood. He takes on the captaincy at 26, just like Michael Powell did. We all know what the job did to Powelly's batting but the circumstances are different now. Powell spent half his time trying to deal with the crossfire between MJK Smith and Bob Woolmer. It is less rancourous behind the scenes these days.

Westwood captained the side impressively while Maddy was injured last season. His three championship innings as skipper brought 68, 176 and 58 and the team played well under him in both four-day cricket and Twenty20.

Areas of concern? Tossing. Westwood lost six out of ten tosses as captain. He should spend at least half an hour every day this winter practicing that aspect of his leadership.

And batting. In bursts he has looked a convincing opening batsman but four of his six first-class centuries have been scored against Glamorgan (twice), West Indies A and Cambridge UCCE. There will be no soft runs around in the championship next season. Warwickshire will need big scores more often from him.

Sad to hear of the death of Norman McVicker - a fine seamer of the 1970s and the only Warwickshire bowler ever to take hat-trick which included the scalp of West Indian great Sonny Ramadhin.

On June 12, 1971, the Bears played Lincolnshire in the Gillette Cup at Edgbaston. McVicker was presented with his county cap before the game and this appears to have had a galvanising effect. After Warwickshire scored 294 for 4 (Kanhai 126, MJK Smith 88, leg-byes 2), Lincolnshire floundered against the bowler who used to captain them.

During his second spell of five for ten in six overs, McVicker secured a hat-trick by bowling HJ Price, trapping G Plaskitt lbw and then, in a thrilling finale which had the Edgbaston crowd on its feet, having Ramadhin caught by wicket-keeper AC Smith.

Two days later, batting for Lancashire against Northamptonshire in the county championship at Southport, Ken Snellgrove was out for a duck.

I understand that Warwickshire have made swift progress in talks with John Sergeant and are planning to hold a press conference at Edgbaston tomorrow to unveil him on a five-year contract as their new fielding coach.

The ECB expect to furnish the counties with a provisional fixture-list next Monday with a view to publication, after a bit of tweaking, three or four days later.

Warwickshire will not be playing any home games at out-grounds, of course.

Siegfried Sassoon loved cricket deeply all his life and spent many happy childhood hours playing it with his brother Hamo (later to die in the First World War) in the rambling garden of the family home at Weirleigh, Kent, just as cricket was approaching its Golden Age with the likes of WG Grace, CB Fry, Gilbert Jessop and Silvester Fishwick bestriding the creases of England.

Sassoon never did a blog. But he didn't half write some nifty poems.

"They"

The Bishop tells us: 'When the boys come back
'They will not be the same; for they'll have fought
'In a just cause: they lead the last attack
'On Anti-Christ; their comrades' blood has bought
'New right to breed an honourable race,
'They have challenged Death and dared him face to face.'

'We're none of us the same!' the boys reply.
'For George lost both his legs; and Bill's stone blind;
'Poor Jim's shot through the lungs and like to die;
'And Bert's gone syphilitic: you'll not find
'A chap who's served that hasn't found some change.'
And the Bishop said: 'The ways of God are strange!'