Mark Robinson believes his side will continue to be ‘aggressive’ as they look to chase a place at Finals Day.
The Bears have topped the North Group in successive years, and reached a quarter-final in the past three, on the back of some scintillating cricket, which saw them surpass 200 seven times with the bat last year.
“We’re the Bears. We’re a big club with big expectations,” said Robinson. “As a group, and First Team Coach, we love competing and winning, but we’re also realistic that sometimes you don’t. That’s the game.
“It’s a great time for domestic players and everyone looks forward to it. It gets earlier and earlier, but once it’s on the TV it takes off, and we’re really excited.
“We had a meeting today as a group, with some on zoom, but every club in the country will be doing similar things after recruiting a team that they think will go all the way to Finals Day. We’re no different. You need a little bit of luck, you need to keep the right players fit, but we’re ambitions and we want to win. Whether that’s expectation, pressure, or excitement, you can choose your words.
“We’ll look to do replicate last year’s success with the bat, but sometimes it doesn’t look pretty. I think everyone will have seen under Alex Davies, as our four-day captain, and Will Rhodes previously, that we want to play aggressive cricket.
Bears are taking a 13-player squad north this afternoon to face Durham on Friday, before heading home to Edgbaston for Saturday’s Blast Off. Plenty of miles will be clocked in the legs - and on the coach - but it’s an exciting time for those involved, especially the playing squad which has seen George Garton and Richard Gleeson added to the pace bowling department.
“We’ve got a mixture with the experience of Glees and Garts - although he is still relatively young - and then we’ve got a young batting line-up with Jacob Bethell, Dan Mousley and Rob Yates, who had a breakthrough year last year and hopefully he can build on it.
“We’ve tried to give our batters the confidence that we believe in them as we haven’t gone for an overseas batter. We’ve given them the space to grow and to improve and carry forward the good work they did last year.
“But ultimately you’ve got to look at the game at hand. We’re mindful we’ve got players who can cover potential injuries and we feel we’ve got that in the batting, seam department, plus plenty of spin options.
“If a spinner was to go down, or if we were to change the balance of the team, it wouldn’t affect us as we’re carrying a lot of spin options with Yatesy, Bethell, plus the obvious options in Briggs, Lintott and Mousley. That’s exciting for us.”
Squad
Alex Davies (C & WK)Hassan AliEd BarnardChris BenjaminJacob BethellDanny BriggsGeorge GartonRichard GleesonSam HainJake LintottCraig MilesDan MousleyRob Yates
Head-to-Head
This will be the 17th match between the two teams in this competition. Bears have won 12 and Durham 4. The last five results were: W, W, W, W, L.
During last year's clash at Emirates Riverside, Hassan Ali took 2/15 from his four overs as the hosts set 147 to win. In a tense finish, Jacob Bethell struck 27, before Danny Briggs hit a maximum in the final over nine down.
Milestones
Danny Briggs requires 3 wickets to reach 50 wickets for the Bears.
How to follow
Members and supporters can follow the match live in our Match Centre at edgbaston.com. Supporters can get involved by sending their match day comments and thoughts on Twitter via @WarwickshireCCC and we’ll publish the best ones on our live text commentary in the Match Centre. Supporters can also watch the Live Stream and get instant push notifications of all wickets, innings and match results via the Edgbaston app, which is free to download on iOS and Android. Match updates will also be available across the Club’s social media accounts, simply search for @WarwickshireCCC.
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