Bears in trouble
Alex Narey on the daunting task ahead for Warwickshire
Two weeks into the County Championship and already one of the pre-season big guns find themselves firmly on the back foot.
Before a ball was bowled in anger, Warwickshire were my tip to break the Middlesex and Yorkshire stronghold. With Ashley Giles returning and Jim Troughton carrying out his duties as coach, I felt the Edgbaston side had found the right formula at the top that would trickle down to the playing ranks. After speaking with Giles a week before the Championship got underway, you couldn’t help but be impressed with his outlook; a measured approach that was equally refreshing and honest. Seventeen days on from that meeting, and following back-toback innings defeats, Warwickshire’s ‘sport director’ is already throwing the word ‘relegation’ about as the Bears sit rooted to the foot of division one.
The great Jack Nicklaus always used to say that you couldn’t win a golf tournament on the first day, but you could sure as hell lose it. Nicklaus’ theory was that to win over four days in golf, patience had to take precedence over attack. Every shot required a bubble of concentration and the golf course the necessary management to counter its defences. Nicklaus wasn’t saying a player couldn’t be aggressive early on, but all-out aggression was best reserved for the weekend with the field lighter from those who had failed to make the cut.
That’s been the case for Warwickshire this season; too many of their batsmen – experienced campaigners who know how to chalk up runs the hard way – have been guilty of not playing the percentages.
In their recent defeat against Yorkshire it could be argued they got the dirty end of the stick in terms of conditions. But that doesn’t excuse a lack of application. I take nothing away from the brilliance of young Ben Coad (10-102 in the match), but where was the ‘game-management’ from the Warwickshire batsmen.
People were left to question Giles’ choice of words this week, with some claiming it was a defeatist attitude to be talking about the drop at such an early stage of the campaign. But the cold, hard facts are that Warwickshire have three points and another meagre return when they pull up against Surrey today – a side who have already handed out one of those innings defeats this season – and the water may well be too choppy to get out of.
Troughton’s side are in a position where they have to bat for their lives, so that when the Championship returns next month they still have something to cling on to.