Warwickshire captain Jonathan Trott believes his team will be helped by the clarity of the mission in front of them when they face Somerset at Edgbaston in a must-win Specsavers County Championship match tomorrow.
‘Must-win’ is a grossly overused term in sport but for the Bears this week it is starkly accurate. With four games left, they remain bottom of Division One, 12 points behind Somerset, who occupy the other relegation slot, and 35 adrift of Yorkshire who sit just above the safety line.
We transformed our cricket in T20 during the season which has been great to see so now let’s take that into our four-day cricket.
Jonathan Trott
With Somerset next and a trip to Yorkshire still ahead, there is still a way to First Division survival for Warwickshire. But they almost certainly need to win all their last four games – a tall order for a side which has so far won just one of ten while losing six, most recently by eight wickets to Lancashire at Emirates Old Trafford last week.
“I think, in a way, it helps that all the pondering and wondering what might be needed is out of the way – we know what we have to do,” said Trott.
“The mindset is clear. We have to win four out of four. That equation is made up for us so we have just got to go out there and do it.
“We have to force a victory out of any circumstances that come our way. And we need to play better cricket than we did at Lancashire. We didn’t bat well enough in the first innings there and also they shouldn’t have been allowed to get 500. That tells the story – we need to be better all round.”
As the Bears enter the last chance saloon in their relegation battle, they need to translate the momentum from their uplifting NatWest T20 Blast campaign into four-day cricket.
Most urgently, they must put a big total on the board and halt the string of collapses which has plagued their batting this year. Only Trott has passed 500 championship runs this season. While he has 800 the next top scorer is Keith Barker with 484.
“We transformed our cricket in T20 during the season which has been great to see so now let’s take that into our four-day cricket,” the captain said.
We have to force a victory out of any circumstances that come our way. And we need to play better cricket than we did at Lancashire.
Jonathan Trott
“Over the last couple of years our batting notoriously hasn’t been good enough and we need to address that. I think over the last ten years, because of the amount of points on offer for wins, clubs are producing a lot more result wickets, but that’s something we have got to deal with. And we have to learn the art of playing good cricket on all four days of a championship match rather than having bad sessions or days which leave us battling uphill from the first or second.”
Warwickshire Squad
- Jonathan Trott (Captain)
- Tim Ambrose (Wicket-Keeper)
- Keith Barker
- Ian Bell
- Henry Brookes
- Matthew Lamb
- Jeetan Patel
- Dom Sibley
- Ryan Sidebottom
- Sunny Singh
- Andy Umeed
- Chris Wright
