Under new leadership: Warwickshire start unusual season afresh

BOB WILLIS TROPHY PREVIEW: A new chief executive, a new captain, and a sporting director with only months in the job - the Bears are certainly at the start of their next chapter

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Ins: Michael Burgess (Sussex), Tim Bresnan (Yorkshire)

Outs: Alex Mellor, George Panayi

Fixture list: August 1 - Northamptonshire (h), August 8 - Gloucestershire (a), August 15 - Somerset (h), August 22 - Worcestershire (a), September 6 - Glamorgan (a)

Remind me what happened last year?

It was a tough initiation for Paul Farbrace on his comedown from the England assistant coach job to Warwickshire director of sport (possibly the most curious job title in English cricket). His ongoing task is to rebuild Warwickshire’s ageing squad, which was clear from the use of 24 players in the Championship last season, 10 of them newcomers.

Injuries to Ian Bell and their young quick bowlers Olly Stone, Craig Miles and Liam Norwell (the last two acquisitions from Gloucestershire) did not help. Big counties like Warwickshire really don’t expect to be bringing in players on loan, as they did with Ben Mike and Toby Lester to boost the seam attack. The unflashy Oliver Hannon-Dalby did sterling work carrying the attack.

Luckily, in a season where only one side was to be relegated, Nottinghamshire – the other midlands powerhouse – did substantially worse, and lacked the big top-order runs supplied at Edgbaston by Dom Sibley, who was the first man in the country to 1,000 runs, and faced 1,000 more balls than anyone else. He really is an endangered species.

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What’s happened over the winter?

Right at the top of the club, Neil Snowball – one of the most impressive county chief executives over the last few years – moved on to take the pivotal role of ECB managing director of county cricket. He is replaced by Stuart Cain, a well-known businessman in the West Midlands.

Warwickshire will lose two pillars of their playing staff at the end of this truncated season. Jeetan Patel, now 40 and destined for a coaching career, stepped down as club captain approaching his final year in first-class cricket; we are about to see the passing of one of the last great long-term overseas stints in county cricket. For this reason Warwickshire did not have to sweat about their main overseas player as other counties have, though Chris Green’s T20 deal is off.

Will Rhodes, who captained England Under-19, has taken on the captaincy. And Tim Ambrose, one of the best keepers in county cricket over the last 15 years, will retire as well. His long-term replacement looks likely to be Michael Burgess, who arrived from Sussex. Bell will follow at the end of 2021.

So it really is a reinvention of the squad, and the indications are that Farbrace will take a more hands-on role than his appearance in a suit suggests.

Who’s arrived and who’s left?

One sign that Warwickshire feel they need some experience in the dressing-room is in the arrival of Tim Bresnan, who – though making his first-class debut in 2003 – is still 35 and may have 600 first-class wickets in his sights. He found himself squeezed out at Yorkshire but negotiated a two-and-a-half year stay at Edgbaston.

Who will be the key men in 2020?

Keeping enough of the exciting young quick bowlers fit could well be crucial, as it seems unlikely Warwickshire will see much of Sibley due to the Pakistan Test series.

They do have proven scorers of hundreds in Sam Hain, who looks destined for an England career, and most obviously Bell, who will be hungry to go out on a high over his last season and a half. But it’s hard to look beyond Patel, who has been held under lock and key during spring of his final season, and will be operating at a dry time of year.

What can we expect from this team this season?

It would be appropriate if Warwickshire, where Bob Willis spent most of his career, won the trophy named after him. Certainly an improvement on last season, whether or not they plug the absence of Sibley, is compulsory. But the Trophy could be a useful grounding for young players ahead of the serious work of keeping Division One status and turning around flagging white-ball fortunes in 2021. If the likes of Olly Stone and Henry Brookes are firing, anything is possible.

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