When Dougie Brown succeeded Ashley Giles as Warwickshire’s director of cricket this winter, the challenge facing him could be interpreted one of two ways.
‘Nice work if you can get it,’ observed Person A, musing on the fact that Brown inherited a team of reigning county champions, clearly the best in the country last year and with numerous players with genuine international credentials. Easy job.
‘But hold on a minute,’ piped up Person B. ‘He’s on a hiding to nothing’. Anything less than winning the championship again will constitute a step backwards. In his first season as a director of cricket, this guy finds the bar set very high.
Well, the bar is high, for sure. But Brown is accustomed to that.
Having been, as a player, a major component of three Bears championship-winning teams between 1994 and 2004 and helping them to considerable success in one-day-cricket, the 43-year-old expects nothing other than to demand success from himself and those around him.
And the presence of that mentality as part of the general mindset in the dressing-room at Edgbaston these days was a big reason why Brown was so eager to follow Giles into the Bears’ hot seat.
“There is a really good vibe about the place,” Brown said. “When you have won the championship the supporters get wrapped up in that and we, as players and coaches, are no different.
“People around the country know that we are champions and deserve to be. But we want to show that we are not satisfied with that. We want to raise our levels further.
“Of course we want to win the championship again. We will try to win everything and we have got a squad which we think will be competitive.
“I am delighted to have been given the opportunity to take this group of players forward as director of cricket with a really strong management team around me.
"Ash has big shoes to fill but I have spoken to him a few times over the winter and he feels we have the skill-sets to keep moving forward. We have identified a few areas where we can improve.
“It’s really important that we don’t get carried away with what we achieved last year and I am sure we won’t. The players really enjoyed what they had to celebrate last September but are driven to achieve continued success here.”
Warwickshire launched their title defence this week against newly-promoted Derbyshire at Edgbaston, having started their first-class campaign in style three weeks ago with an innings victory over MCC in Abu Dhabi.
That match followed the usual pre-season visit to Barbados, a trip which has become an integral springboard towards the season for the Bears. Since their first March visit there in 2011, Warwickshire’s cricket, in the championship in particular, has soared.
“Pre-season went very well,” Brown said. “It is a period of transition, in some ways, with the new management team and I guess the players were going to find it slightly different with no Ash. But Barbados was very good.
“We learned a lot about many people, particularly the younger ones. Some of them were outstanding.
“Then came Abu Dhabi and our first competitive challenge. They were alien conditions out there and we were slghtly depleted with guys injured and away on international duty but the squad embraced everything we wanted from them.
Guys who have been working on stuff over the winter showed that that work has come to fruition.
“It was great to see the batsmen putting their game together in the middle and developing partnerships. We were delighted to see Will Porterfield get his maiden first-class 50 for us and Varun Chopra continue the success he has had all winter.
“As for the bowlers, Chris Wright bowled one spell which, on the night, under lights, was world-class. And he was incredibly well backed up by Rikki Clarke, who gets better and better, and Oliver Hannon-Dalby.
“MCC had some good players that we will be playing against in Division One this season and those guys hopefully went back to their counties enthusing about what they saw from us. We showed really high skill-levels and proved to ourselves that we can go in there and deal with a couple of injured players and grind away to win the games.
“The way that we did it was very pleasing, making a big total with big partnerships and backing it up down the order and then showing aggressive discipline with the ball.
“Many positives came out of the game and now we can’t wait for the season proper to start.”
An innings win. Not a bad way to launch Brown’s leadership. For Warwickshire’s supporters it is hard not to have high expectations for 2013.
But, within the dressing-room at least, those expectations will be kept in check.
“We have an excellent bunch of guys who are maturing week on week,” Brown said. “But it’s really important to keep a lid on where we are at the moment and not look too far ahead.
"In the last couple of years we have talked a lot about managing expectations and that’s exactly what we have to do. If we do that the bigger picture will look after itself.”
• Warwickshire's title defence got off to a solid start as they bowled out newcomers Derbyshire for 226 at Edgbaston on Thursday.
The Bears were without frontline seamers Keith Barker, Chris Woakes and Boyd Rankin but Chris Wright and Jeetan Patel filled the void with three wickets apiece.
It could have been worse for Derbyshire but Tony Palladino's late 68 edged them to a first point of the campaign, before Warwickshire closed at 14 without loss.
