With Olly Stone and Keith Barker close to returning, the Warwickshire brass could have some interesting decisions to make.
Warwickshire first-team coach Jim Troughton is looking forward to some “selection headaches” when the time comes to pick the team to face Derbyshire in the Specsavers County Championship next week.
The Bears will face the resurgent east Midlands county at Edgbaston buoyed by an emphatic win over Northamptonshire at Northampton.
Leaving out Adam Hose was a really tough call when he had done nothing wrong.
Jim Troughton
That victory, by an innings and 48 runs, was banked without injured front-line seamers Keith Barker and Olly Stone whose replacements, Ryan Sidebottom and Harry Brookes, rose to the challenge to share 13 wickets in the match.
With Barker and Stone likely to be back in contention, after hamstring injuries, next week, Troughton and captain Jeetan Patel will have some interesting decisions to make.
“There were a lot of good things to take from the Northamptonshire game and we have a bit of time now because we are not playing in the current round,” Troughton said. “So that gives Olly and Barks a chance to get fit again and give us some selection headaches.
“But they are the sort of headaches you want. To be honest, even with Olly and Barks out, we had some difficult decisions to make at Northampton. Leaving out Adam Hose was a really tough call when he had done nothing wrong but we had to think about the balance of the team.
“With Barks going down we lost another all-rounder so something had to give and unfortunately for Adam it was him. But he was brilliant how he took it and that’s the sort of mentality we have at the club.”
Sidebottom certainly made himself hard to leave out against Derbyshire when he marked his first game of the season with a career-best ten for 96, taking his first-class figures, after nine games, to a highly impressive 34 wickets at 20.76 apiece.
“In pre-season Ryan was a yard short of a gallop,” said Troughton. “He didn’t bowl as well as he wanted to and put a bit of pressure on himself but he came in at Northampton, led the attack with a ten-for and really took his chance. Ten for 96 is a solid effort and we are all really happy for him.”
