Brian Halford on 10 years covering Warwickshire County Cricket Club
For Warwickshire, the ‘Noughties’ was a decade of mixed fortunes on the field and considerable change and controversy off it. BRIAN HALFORD chronicled the Bears’ exploits throughout a period which transformed both county cricket and the wider cricket world. Here, he takes a stroll through his decade as arwickshire correspondent for the Birmingham Post and Mail.
2000
ON MAY 1, 2000, I reported on my first Warwickshire match, a National League game against Hampshire at Northlands Road. To my horror, it produced a big story.
Allan Donald seriously injured himself falling on a boundary fence. This meant I had to collar the coach, post-match, to ascertain the damage.
With trepidation I, a total nonentity on his cricket-reporting debut, called the legend that was Bob Woolmer as he drove north. It was the first time we spoke. He was helpful, charming and humorous. “A.D’s in the passenger seat beside me,” he said. “I can confirm he’ll live.”
Blimey, I thought, accustomed to the grudging offerings of football managers. If the biggest names in cricket are that pleasant, this might not be a bad job.
Woolmer’s love of cricket was always palpable but his second spell as Warwickshire coach tested it. A wet 2000 season (1,600 overs lost to rain) brought some one-day success but failure to escape the championship Second Division.
After the final game Neil Smith was sacked as captain and replaced by Michael Powell. Donald’s retirement, after dismissing Kevin Dean with his last ball for his beloved Bears, added to the sense of pending transition.
2001
Promotion to the championship First Division was achieved in 2001 but there was little joy at season’s end. The decisive victory arrived in the final game at Derby where before the opening day – September 12 – players lined up in the middle and everyone stood in silence following the Twin Towers atrocity.
It was a sombre, surreal conclusion to a season which brought the requisite promotion in four-day cricket but a worsening atmosphere off the field. As the relationship between Woolmer and chairman Mike Smith soured, Powell, at just 26, had to captain the team amid increasing off-field rancour.
Understandably, his batting average diminished, but his stature as a man grew. Powell remains one of the most selfless and admirable of the 28 men to have captained Warwickshire.
While Powell’s batting suffered, Ian Bell’s blossomed. He became the Bears’ youngest century-maker at 19 years and 115 days while Jim Troughton launched his senior career with a nifty 27 against Worcestershire and Mark Wagh entered the history books with 315 against Middlesex at Lord’s. But Wagh was among those in the throes of becoming so ground down by the Edgbaston politics that he would ultimately leave.
2002
Uncertainty over Woolmer’s future lingered until in early July, during a rain-ruined draw at Maidstone, he confirmed he would leave at the end of the season. His final year with the Bears was his least enjoyable but most players remained fiercely loyal to him and they delivered a farewell trophy by beating Essex in the Benson and Hedges Cup final.
Shaun Pollock’s second ball removed Nasser Hussain to supply the perfect start. The end arrived, after an eye-catching cameo from Troughton, with Bell coolly steering Warwickshire home. Twenty days earlier, Troughton had lodged one of the great maiden centuries for Warwickshire, a sumptuous 131 on a dead Rose Bowl track. While the left-hander emerged, however, poor Wagh endured the agony of a wrecked knee sustained in a pre-season football game.
Powell’s side finished championship runners-up, 44.75 points behind Surrey who they beat in a remarkable match after following on at The Oval.
Woolmer’s reign finished with a spectacular win over Sussex at Hove as the Bears scored 405 in the fourth innings to seal the runners-up spot.
Exit, after one final convivial natter in ‘Sussex Cricketer’ pub at the Sea End, Bob Woolmer. Enter John Inverarity.
