December 2008 Archives

To everyone who has visited this blog and contributed to it during 2008 may I wish a truly happy Christmas and the grooviest possible 2009. Warm wishes to you all and many thanks for your company, both via this blog and in person at cricket grounds around the country, during what has been a rather testing year.

Cheers and all the best.

ENGLAND will face Warwickshire in a three-day warm-up match for the Ashes at Edgbaston next summer.
When the 2009 fixture-list was at last published today, it contained an unexpected jewel for the Bears supporters.
On July 1, 2 and 3, Warwickshire will face Kevin Pietersen's side to supply England with some match practice in the longer format as thoughts turn from the helter-skelter of the Twenty20 World Cup to the serious business of The Ashes.
It is a major coup for the county. Many times, over the years, they have faced England A or, in the traditional curtain-raiser as county champions, MCC. But a match against the full national side is thought to be unprecedented.
"The game is a very welcome addition to our fixtures," said chief executive Colin Povey. "England are keen to get some match preparation in advance of the Ashes and they wanted to play at one of the Test grounds.
"Two or three of those are knocked out of the equation because the game is in the Twenty20 World Cup window so we got the nod.
"As I understand it, it will be a serious, competitive game with England putting out their full side. It will be a great opportunity for the Bears' players and I wouild like to think we will get good crowds in."
That bonus apart, the 2009 itinerary gives Bears supporters plenty of head-scratching fodder. It is more bizarre, unbalanced and spectator-unfriendly than ever.
Much of the reason is Edgbaston' status as a Test ground. When a stadium hosts a showpiece match, no cricket can be played there for, depending on the type of match, between seven and ten days before it. Edgbaston hosts three such occasions - a Test, a one-day international and Twenty20 finals day - next season so that accounts for more than three weeks when the Bears can't play at home. Hence the home champo games falling in clusters separated by some long gaps.
Warwickshire's home season will also finish early - at their own request. All their matches in the last three weeks will be away so that demolition work can begin in earnest at the Pavilion End of Edgbaston.
It is early in the season, though, that the most ridiculous scheduling lies. Warwickshire, who will start their season with a championship visit to Somerset, will play only one-day cricket between May 10 and June 6.
The reshaped Friends Provident Trophy schedule appears to have been drawn up to include maximum travelling.
May 10, Canterbury. May 12, Birmingham. May 14, Taunton. May 16, Edinburgh. May 18, London. May 20, Birmingham. Wonder what Martin O'Neill would make of Aston Villa playing six matches - in Kent, the Midlands, Somerset, Scotland, London and the Midlands again - in ten days!
Everything is set to change for 2010, of course, when the Pro40 will have ceased to exist and the English Premier League might (might, that is) have sprung into life. Certainly the farrago that is the 2009 fixture-list suggests the schedulers have thought 'let's just get through it any way we can'.
The fixtures were a month late coming out this year. It seems the delay was to allow no stone to remain unturned in the quest to inconvenience county cricket followers.

Ian Salisbury has signed an extension to his contract with Warwickshire so will be a Bear beyond his 40th birthday. To match Billy Quaife, however, who played his last game for the county aged 56 (and scored a century in it!), Salisbury will have to be still turning out in 2026.

Interesting speculation this morning, by the way, about Allen Stanford pulling out of his deal with English cricket.

Fingers crossed - for a multitude of reasons. Not least that if Stanford pulls out, the ECB will lose the main backer for their preposterous "English Premier League" notion for the 2010 season.

Let's hope Mr Stanford is, indeed, on his way.

Then there will be just one lugubrious, ego-crazed overseas impostor in English cricket left to deal with...

The 2009 fixtures will at last be published on Thursday.

Will the Bears get Arundel? That would be groovy.

Or Liverpool? Or Basingstoke?

I just have a strange, sneaky feeling than those little devils at Yorkshire will send the Bears back to Scarborough where, of course, their last two visits, in 2006 and 2007, brought defeats by an innings and 96 runs and an innings and 210 runs.

Warwickshire's home fixtures for 2009 will include no fixtures at out-grounds.

I would like to thank everyone who has contributed to making my benefit year such a memorable one. Benefit years do not work without the support of many people and I would like to thank all of my benefit committee for the hard work and enthusiasm they have shown throughout the year. Thank you for all you have contributed to my year, it has been very much appreciated.

Can I also take the opportunity to thank everybody who has attended events throughout the year as your support has been fantastic, from cricket days, to curry nights, from golf days to dinners. I have been so grateful to all who have attended and I have truly loved every minute!

I would like to make special mention of all the Warks CCC members, players and staff who have not only supported me this year but throughout my career. Michelle and I wish the Bears all the best for 2009 as we head to Loretto School in Scotland for a new chapter in our lives.

Being awarded a benefit year has been a wonderful end to a fantastic 15 year association with Warwickshire CCC and I extremely grateful to the Club for allowing me such an opportunity. 2008 has also seen me make new friends with my nominated charity Cure Leukaemia. Thank you to everyone connected with the charity who has supported me and please keep up the good work as you are making a difference to the lives of so many people.

Finally my sincere thanks go to Simon Millington, my benefit chairman, his wife Suzanne and James and David plus my benefit secretary Alison, thank you for your tremendous support of me throughout the year, I am so grateful.

Kind regards.

Michael Powell

Today, I went into a baker's shop and asked the chap behind the counter for a custard tart.
"A custard tart, please," I said, as you do.
His reply? "Would you like a bag of five?"

"No thank you, just the one," I said. Then I paid for the item in question and left, all calm-like, without another word.
But inside I was far from calm. I was seething. Livid. Simmering with fury.

What I could have said was: "Look, Buster, if I wanted five tarts I would have I asked for five tarts. I requested one tart because that is exactly the amount of said confections that I desire. I did not come in here here thinking 'oh I would really like five custard tarts but I am only going to ask for one'. I asked for one, not because I secretly wanted five but was too craven to ask for them or secretly hoped you would raise the stakes in that fashion, but simply because one was actually the precise amount of tarts that I coveted.
"When I attend the newsagent's shop to buy a paper, he does not ask: 'Do you want five?' When I book a badminton court at the sports centre, I am not asked: 'Do you want five courts?' When I popped into the butcher's the other day to order a Christmas turkey, he did not come back with: 'Would you like five?'"

This sort of insidious, ugly, heavy-handed, bully-boy pressure-selling is a NATIONAL disgrace.

"There is no-one, no-one at all, who will be, after reading it, quite the same as he was before." (Pamela Fox on Robert Tressell's masterpiece, 'The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists').

"My Muse finally said 'enough is enough'. The pleasure of sitting in a disused pig-sty and cowshed for eight weeks at a time, sweat rolling down my wrists, moving Ivor the Engine a sixteenth of an inch at a time, had vanished." (Oliver Postgate on his retirement from animation in the early 1980s)

"Dougie's appointment means I have now got things pretty much where I want them." (Ashley Giles on Dougie Brown's appointment, today, as assistant coach at Warwickshire). "Now," added Giles, "I have the team I want to move forward with and, with a new captain as well, we can all really start to plan and look ahead."

Warwickshire are busy hunting for an overseas fast-bowler for next season. Ashley Giles and Allan Donald are out there like Hercule Poirot and the redoubtable Hastings detecting around the globe.

They are on the case. But a case could be made that their target should be an overseas batsman.

The Bears' top-order options, as they stand, don't have much depth and, while each of those options is capable of having a fine season in 2009, each has a caveat.

Ian Westwood - Must deal with the demands of captaincy.
Darren Maddy - Vulnerable early in his innings. If he gets in, then a big one may well follow but failed to reach double figures in ten of his 21 championship innings last season.
Tony Frost - Can he reach the same heights again, with the additional demands of a benefit?
Jonathan Trott - Averaged 19 with the bat last time in Division One.
Jim Troughton - Well, you never quite know do you?
Ian Bell - Probably not available much.
Tim Ambrose - Might not be available much and must deal with the baggage of being on the periphery of the England team, which is more difficult and wearing than being a regular in it.

All these chaps are capable of scoring big runs next season but will enough of them do so? And, of course, will enough of them stay fit? Two injuries simultaneously would pose a big problem.

So would the Bears be better off bringing in a Rohan Kanhai-type figure to add serious weight of runs?

Remember The Clangers? Dear old strange, knitted creatures?

Well it has just come to my attention that: "The Clangers' society is courteous and non-violent, nor is there any glorification of conflict. They enjoy the simple things in life, eating blue string pudding, watering various plants with the cloud and radioing the Iron Chicken.

"A Clanger's life is far from dull. Theirs is a world where music grows on trees and where musical notes, when collected, may be used to propel space-borne craft."

Pretty mellow eh?. Anyone know the way?

IAN Salisbury is poised to sign an extension to his Warwickshire contract, binding him to the club until the end of the 2010 season.

Full story of this happy development - God bless leg-spin and all who purvey it - in tomorrow's Birmingham Mail.