Westwood wants strong end to red ball block

Report: Warwickshire v Surrey, Rothesay County Championship - Image 2

“We’re growing in confidence, growing in belief” – those are the words of First Team Coach Ian Westwood as he aims to end the first block of County Championship games on a high.

briggford

2025-05-15T14:00:00.000Z

“We’re growing in confidence, growing in belief” – those are the words of First Team Coach Ian Westwood as he aims to end the first block of County Championship games on a high.

Bears have enjoyed a solid start to the season with two wins and three draws putting them second in the early Division One table.

He was proud of last week's display at home to Surrey, especially his side’s Day Three endeavors with the ball which kept them in with a chance of victory against the champions.

Hampshire are next up at Edgbaston - and Westwood wants to see another positive performance.

“We can put ourselves in a really strong position after seven games before we switch to the T20s,” said Westwood. “I think we can get positive results in the next two games. And if we do we’ll be very handily placed in the Championship at the end of this first block of fixtures.

“We’ve played some solid cricket. We’re not the finished article, but we’re growing as a group, growing in belief, people are coming in and putting in performances.

Westwood said he was proud of the effort his players put in against Surrey last time out as they battled hard to force a win on a good batting surface.

“It was a good batting pitch that required real effort to get any joy on,” he added. “Surrey bat all the way down the order and are battle-hardened, they’re a hard team to beat. But we gave it our best shot and I really enjoyed watching us play. We never gave up and never stopped believing.

“Everyone chipped in. Rob held an end well, got wickets and built pressure, and Che (Simmons) delivered a very hostile spell of eight overs. He broke them open at the time and gave us hope of pushing for the win.

“We hoped the wicket might have deteriorated a bit more towards the end of the match but it stayed very true, made it difficult to gat any wickets on that final day. But until then I was very pleased with the way we batted and the performance on that third day was brilliant in taking that may wickets.”

How to follow

Members and supporters can follow the match live in our Match Centre at edgbaston.com, which will include a free-to-watch stream and a live text commentary. You can also see a ball-by-ball feed and watch highlights of all the action.

Supporters can get involved by sending their match-day comments and thoughts on X 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.