The change of captain

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.