First-team coach Jim Troughton wants his Warwickshire team to banish their inconsistency when they face Notts Outlaws and Lancashire in a Royal London Cup home double-header this weekend.
The Bears face the Outlaws at Edgbaston tomorrow before Lancashire visit on Sunday and Troughton’s men will be determined to hit back hard after back-to-back defeats.
After starting their group campaign with a brilliant ten-wicket win away to Northants Steelbacks, the Bears were beaten at home to Durham and away to Leicestershire Foxes by 72 and 103 runs respectively.
The blip has continued the theme of inconsistency to their opening weeks of the season. In the Specsavers County Championship, they began with defeats away to Surrey and at home to Yorkshire before bouncing back with a much-improved performance in a home draw with Surrey.
Troughton is looking for a similar reaction from his players in the 50-over format against the Outlaws tomorrow.
“Notts are another team who will come hard at us with the bat,” he said. “We know how they like to play their white-ball cricket.
“They are a decent one-day outfit who, like us, have had a bit of an inconsistent start, but the group is wide open. Any team can beat any other on the day and we just have to make sure we are in a good place on Friday. “We know we can turn it around. We have got the ability, it’s just a question of working as hard as we can to get into a much better place with bat and ball for these two big home games.
“In the last couple of games we’ve been chasing above-par scores. It hasn’t gone well for us with the ball and scoreboard pressure has got the better of us on both occasions.
“It’s not for the want of effort from the guys who are trying to nail these skills, but we know we are in a block of games coming thick and fast now so it’s about getting these skills right as soon as we can.
“Leicestershire came at us hard on Tuesday and posted a good total. They played strong cricket shots. One bloke scored 150 and others played cameos around him and that’s how to build a big total. But we didn’t bowl well, not least at the back end to close the innings out.”
Faced with a target of 364 at Grace Road, the Bears’ batsmen were under serious pressure from the word go, through Sam Hain responded with a classy century to continue his excellent form in the competition.
“When you are chasing that sort of total you need a near-perfect innings,” said Troughton. “It was beyond us but, within that, Hainy played very well.
“He was national top-scorer in the 50-over competition last season and has started off with an 80 and a 100 this year and can hopefully keep building on that.
“I think what he’ll want to do now is make those innings into really big scores. He is capable of doing that and, as a coaching staff, that’s what we’ll be challenging him to do.”
Picture by Tony Marsh: sportinpix@yahoo.co.uk
Warwickshire Squad
- Ian Bell (Captain)
- Tim Ambrose (Wicket-Keeper)
- Keith Barker
- Rikki Clarke
- Sam Hain
- Oliver Hannon-Dalby
- Ateeq Javid
- Matthew Lamb
- Jeetan Patel
- Josh Poysden
- Grant Thornton
- Aaron Thomason
- Jonathan Trott
Tickets
Warwickshire’s home Royal London One-Day Cup game against Notts Outlaws starts at 11am on Friday 5 May.
Adult tickets are priced at £15 at all times, whilst Under 16s go completely FREE.
