NZ cricket goes Bear

Mark Greatbatch has been made an advisor to the NZ selection panel and, adding to the Bearification of NZ cricket with Andy Moles already installed as the new coach, Dermot Reeve (my ultimate cricket hero) will be serving as a bowling coach for the T20s NZ will be playing against the Windies. AD was also approached by NZ but turned them down and is staying with the Bears... for now anyway.

Fixtures at last!

The fixtures are out, hoorah! The campaign to bring the county championship back to Edgbaston (or avoid relegation if you prefer) begins in mid-April at Taunton and ends at Old Trafford at the end of September. Interestingly Warwickshire will play England in a 3 day warm up prior to the Ashes.

Council row over loan to Warks

A row has erupted in Birmingham City Council over the decision to loan the club £20 million for it's planned redevelopment. The row has broken out because the loan was originally going to just £10 million but there are rumours it could really be double that and there are question marks about how the club will repay it!

"Some important questions need to be asked. The council helps many organisations but is it right to give financial support by means of a loan considering our other priorities?" James Hutchings, chairman of the council's finance committee, told the Birmingham Post.

"During the past couple of seasons the cricket club has barely broken even. If they are only just breaking even how can they afford to pay £1 million annual interest charges and at some stage repay the loan? It wouldn't be very friendly for the council to lend them the money if that drives the club into financial failure."

Not very encouraging.

Dougie is the assistant coach

Dougie Brown has been appointed the new role of Assistant Coach which has been formed by merging the Second XI Coach and Elite Academy Coach jobs. This has meant that Keith Piper, the 2nd XI coach, has gone after 19 years with the club and has taken voluntary redundancy. Good luck to Keith in his future endeavours and to Dougie in his new role backing up the King of Spain!

Salisbury to play on until 2010

Ian Salisbury was one of last season's unexpected success stories. What was this, the members grumbled when he was signed. He is so old, what about the youth?! But his professionalism, experience and temperament proved vital to the Bears so it is good news that he has signed a contract extension until 2010.

West Indies fill the gap

The West Indies will tour England next Spring and early Summer filling the gap left by Sri Lanka who decided to IPLise their bank accounts instead (and anyway they were filling the gap left by the mighty Zimbabwe, a country driven to bankruptcy by corruption, ineptitude and power mania. No that's Zimbabwe not the UK. Though amusingly the head of the Zim central bank has praised Britain for copying their fiscal policies, despite all the chorola and violence its nice to see Zimbabweans still have a sence of humour.) The Windies, who are just about as broke as Zimbabwe in any case, will play 2 tests and 3 ODIs, the last of which will be at Edgbaston on May 23rd.

This now allows the fixtures for 2009 to be finally completed and finalised. Quite why we had to wait i don't know considering June onwards presumably was already decided.

Will England return to India?

The Chennai test has been given the all clear according to the ECB but will there be an England team there to take part in the test? According to well-known diplomat Dominic Cork 5 or 6 players will refuse to go. (Or is he just hoping so he can step in as a replacement?)

The incredibly elusive fixture list

Because of the uncertainty around the touring team coming to England in the first half of next season the fixtures list has yet to be published for 2009. Usually its done for early November but now its a month late. I want to see the list before i make my final decision about what to do about my membership next year. I am moving more to just retaining my normal membership though if it looks likely i won't see many games again an associate or even a season ticket may instead be the result.

I don't really understand the delay though, surely the fixture list is very easy to write up. Half the CC games in chilly April and changeable May and the other half in gloomy September.

Gilo has plan for the batting

The King Of Spain has a plan to improve the batting ready for the first division campaign next year, lets face it the batting has been patchy to say the least for the last few days and some way away from the awesome invincible batting that powered the club to it's last county championship only a few years ago. To improve the batting the players will be doing a lot of hard grind. Players will be practising their weaker shots over and over again, he also wants the batsman to improve their manipulation of seam bowlers and finding the gaps against spin bowling.

No doubt this will help de-risk the players techniques in the fact of the greater challenges of D1. I love the word de-risk and i am going to try and use it as much as possible.

Piper to leave Warks

Keith Piper has decided to leave Warwickshire instead of compete with Dougie Brown for the single coaching place after the coaching team reorganisation (many people think it would have been a foregone conclusion and presumably Keith also thought that too). Keith and the club are now negotiating for his financial settlement. Keith will become a freelance wicketkeeping coach.