Welcome to 'Ask Jimmy,' where SI Media writer Jimmy Traina will answer one question about a burning topic from the sports media world.

A balls and strikes challenge system is finally coming to Major League Baseball. After being used for several years in the minor leagues, the Automated Ball-Strike (ABS) Challenge System will be featured in the big leagues beginning next season. Each team will get two challenges per game when it comes to balls and strikes, which will be retained if successful.

This is nothing but a positive for the sport. You can’t have games decided on missed calls by the home plate umpire and this is a way to fix that.

The only downside is that I wish teams were allotted more than two challenges per game from the start. I’d give teams four or five challenges per game. Even if you think home plate umpires do a great job, they’re still going to miss a handful of calls in each game. Why not implement a system in order to rectify that?

If your argument against the ABS challenge system is that it will slow down the game, think again. 

Baseball has done a great job of speeding up the game by instituting the pitch clock. The challenge system won’t have a significant effect on the length of games.

Via MLB: In 288 games with the ABS Challenge System during Spring Training 2025, there were an average of 4.1 challenges per game. Those challenges took an average of 13.8 seconds. 

Adding on a minute to each game to get important calls correct is a no-brainer. 

Baseball already has instant replay, so adding another layer to have balls and strikes challenged seems like a natural progression. 

Think about how history would have changed if ABS was around in 1998 when the Yankees got this gift from the home plate umpire.

You just can’t miss a call like that in a World Series game.

The only downside in my view is that this will limit the number of player explosions when a home plate umpire gets a call wrong. Now, instead of throwing their helmet or slamming their bats, a batter will simply tap his head to call for replay. 

تلقى مجلس إدارة نادي الزمالك، خطابًا من هيئة المجتمعات العمرانية بشأن، أرض القلعة البيضاء في مرسى مطروح ومصيرها خلال الفترة المقبلة.

وأصدر الزمالك بيانًا خلال الساعات القليلة الماضية، يفيد بأنه تلقى خطابًا من هيئة المجتمعات العمرانية، أنها بصدد تطوير منطقة خليج الغرام، وسيتم استغلال أراضي الشواطئ ومسطح المياه بالمنطقة لتنفيذ مشروع قومي.

طالع.. رسميًا.. تأجيل مباراة الزمالك وبلدية المحلة في كأس مصر

ووأوضح الخطاب أنه في الفترة المقبلة سيتم إيقاف أي تعاملات أو إنشاءات جديدة، بشأن الأراضي التي سبق إصدار تراخيص بناء عليها والمصايف في المنطقة تحت ولاية الهيئة.

وشددت هيئة المجتمعات العمرانية في خطابها، على عدم قبول أي مقابل حق انتفاع للشاطئ للعام القادم 2026 ولأجل غير مسمى.

وفي نفس الإطار قرر مجلس الإدارة تكليف الشؤون القانونية بالرد على الخطاب الذي تلقاه النادي من هيئة المجتمعات العمرانية.

وكان الزمالك يمتلك مصيف في مرسى مطروح لأعضاء الجمعية العمومية بالنادي.

يذكر أن الزمالك، قد واجه أزمة بخصوص أرض الفرع الجديد في السادس من أكتوبر والتي قامت وزارة الإسكان بسحبها بسبب انتهاء المهلة المحددة لإنهاء مشاريع الأبيض عليها. بيان الزمالك بشأن مصيف مرسى مطروح

تلقى نادي الزمالك خطابًا من هيئة المجتمعات العمرانية الجديدة، جهاز تنمية القطاع الثالث للساحل الشمالي الغربي(مرسي مطروح)، يفيد بأنه في إطار التخطيط لتطوير منطقة خليج الغرام، وذلك لاستغلال أراضي الشواطئ ومسطح المياة بالمنطقة لتنفيذ مشروع قومي.

وعليه فإنه يتم إيقاف أي تعاملات أو إنشآت جديدة أو التي سبق لها إصدار تراخيص بناء على الأراضي، والمصايف الكائنة بولاية الهيئة بالمنطقة، وعدم قبول أي مقابل حق انتفاع للشاطئ للعام القادم 2026 ولأجل غير مسمى.

وكلف مجلس إدارة نادي الزمالك إدارة الشؤون القانونية بالرد على الخطاب المرسل للنادي من هيئة المجتمعات العمرانية.

The Milwaukee Brewers, the No. 1 team in baseball, received some unfortunate news on Sunday ahead of the final week of the regular season. Star pitcher Brandon Woodruff landed on the 15-day injured list with a right lat strain.

The IL designation goes back to Sept. 18, meaning Woodruff would first become available for the Brewers in the NLDS when that starts up on Saturday, Oct. 4. That would likely be the Brewers' expected first game in the postseason anyway as they will get a bye in the wild-card series as long as they hold onto the top spot.

It's been an injury-riddled 2025 season for the two-time All-Star. After missing the entire 2024 season while recovering from right shoulder surgery, Woodruff didn't make his 2025 debut until July 6. In May, he paused his rehab minor league assignment with an ankle injury. Then, when he was in the midst of his rehabilitation minor league return in June, he was hit on the elbow by a line drive, which in turn kept him out for another month.

Through 12 starts this season, Woodruff posted a 3.20 ERA over 64.2 innings pitched. He has 83 strikeouts and had 23 earned runs against him.

Chelsea are beginning to reap the rewards of their ambitious spending since Todd Boehly and his private equity firm Clearlake Capital replaced Roman Abramovich in 2022.

It’s been a twisting road for the Blues over the past several years, but Enzo Maresca has advanced after a promising, trophy-winning 2024/25 campaign to establish his side as budding Premier League title contenders.

Maresca leads a young squad. A hungry group of talented players yet to reach the top of the game.

Chelsea

2nd

24.0

Brentford

13th

24.7

Man City

3rd

25.0

Bournemouth

8th

25.0

Sunderland

7th

25.2

There are ostensible drawbacks to employing such a strategy, but it’s bearing dividends, and the success will only grow over the coming years, with more set to follow in Estevao Willian’s footsteps.

Estevao's start to life at Chelsea

In May 2024, Chelsea finalised a deal for Brazilian youngster Estevao, an initial £29m deal which could eventually rise to £52m with performance-related add-ons.

18 years old, Estevao has enjoyed a dream start to his Chelsea career, having notched five goals from his first 17 senior outings for the Londoners.

With three goals in his past three Champions League outings, the hype is growing around his skilful and dynamic youngster, who outshone Lamine Yamal in the Blues’ romping 3-0 win over Barcelona in midweek.

So intense is the hype around Estevao’s potential that Como scout and analyst Ben Mattinson has labelled the Brazil international a “future Ballon d’Or winner”, and that’s definitely not out of the equation.

Estevao has what it takes to become London’s most talented wide forward, for sure, perhaps taking that crown from Arsenal talisman Bukayo Saka.

But the fact that Chelsea have landed themselves another Estevao-esque talent who could rival these cream-of-crop players is a perfect illustration of Chelsea’s burgeoning strategy.

Chelsea have a talent "just like Estevao"

Arsenal have the lead in the Premier League title race, and there’s no question that Mikel Arteta is deeper into his project than Maresca at Stamford Bridge.

But Chelsea are building something special, and they would welcome another poster boy to further strengthen Maresca’s system. Well, that player could have already been signed in Geovany Quenda, with a £40m deal in principle agreed at the end of last season to welcome the Portugal U21 international in 2026.

Hailed as “one of the most exciting teenage prospects in Europe” by talent scout Jacek Kulig, Quenda has “been on fire” for Sporting Lisbon this season, coming into his own on the right wing.

The 18-year-old’s energy, pace and skill on the ball have seen him hailed as having a mentality “just like Estevao” – as per Alex Goldberg – that will see him succeed in the Premier League, endowed with an athletic underbelly to complement his blistering pace and skill on the ball.

Goals scored

0.09

0.43

Assists

0.35

0.16

Shots taken

1.72

2.92

Shot-creating actions

4.62

4.69

Touches (att pen)

3.39

6.74

Pass completion (%)

72.9

73.8

Progressive passes

5.11

2.45

Progressive carries

3.30

4.34

Successful take-ons

1.58

1.85

Ball recoveries

4.75

3.90

Tackles + interceptions

1.54

2.05

His sharp-minded approach and combativeness on the ball could indeed see him emulate Saka. Sofascore record that Bissau Guinean-born Quenda has won 52% of his ground duels in Liga Portugal this term, and for one so young, this bodes well for a future in the harsh climate of the Premier League.

Furthermore, he is developing a ball-playing game that suggests he has the natural talent on the ball to emulate someone like Saka, having also followed in the Englishman’s footsteps by shining at both full-back and wing-back, prior to cementing an attacking role on the flanks.

Whether the Portuguese talent would hit the ground running in the same way that Estevao has is uncertain, of course, but there’s no denying he has the potential to rival his soon-to-be teammate.

A big factor in a winger like Saka’s success (and Estevao’s) is that he is able to merge the many elements together, forming something complete.

Quenda is already proving that he has similar qualities in the locker, and it is for this reason that there is such excitement brewing around his signature.

Chelsea, truly, are rebuilding themselves toward superstar status.

Hazard 2.0: Chelsea lead race to sign "best player on the planet" for £100m

Enzo Maresca and Co could deliver Chelsea fans their next Eden Hazard by signing the international superstar.

ByJack Salveson Holmes Nov 29, 2025

On Saturday Mike Trout hit a big career milestone. The Angels superstar mashed his 400th career home run, an absolute monster of a 485-foot shot against the Rockies at Coors Field. It was a cool moment for the former MVP amidst a down season in Los Angeles— and he capped the night off with a very classy gesture for the fan who caught the ball.

Per ESPN the fan caught the home run ball while attending the game with his family. He was willing to give the milestone baseball back to the superstar, but had one special request: to play a game of catch. Trout obliged, playing catch with the fan on the field after the 3-0 Angels win over the Rockies.

A really cool gesture from Trout and undoubtedly an incredible special moment for the fan. Trout also gave the fan's family three signed baseballs and two signed bats.

"Once they get older and realize, that'll be an awesome memory for the dad to tell the kids, to experience that," Trout said of playing catch with the fan. "I know how I felt when I went to a ballgame with my dad."

The homer was Trout's 22nd of the year for the 70-85 Angels. He'll try to hit No. 401 against the Rockies on Sunday with first pitch set 3:10 p.m. ET.

There are fewer than two months left in the 2025 MLB regular season, and the playoff races in the American and National Leagues are really starting to heat up. 

In the American League, five teams are within five games of the final wild card spot, while the No. 4 team – the Texas Rangers – is just a half-game out of the third spot. A lot could change in the next few months, especially with teams like the Minnesota Twins and Tampa Bay Rays selling at the deadline, but there likely will be a team – or two – that misses the playoffs that was expected to make it in.

In the National League, the top wild card teams (New York, Chicago and San Diego) seem pretty set in stone, but the Cincinnati Reds (three games back) are still within striking distance with plenty of games to go.

Here’s a look at the playoff odds for every team in the hunt, and a few storylines to watch when considering bets for these playoff markets. 

American League Playoff OddsDivision LeadersToronto Blue Jays: -2500Detroit Tigers: -5000Houston Astros: -1000

Toronto (19 games over .500), Detroit (17 games over .500), and Houston (14 games over .500) all appear to be locks to make the playoffs in the 2025 season.

Detroit has a seven-game cushion in the AL Central – the largest of these three division winners – which is why oddsmakers have it priced at -5000 to reach the playoffs for the second straight season.

It would be relatively surprising to see any of these teams fall out of the race, especially since they’d slot in pretty high in the wild card standings if a team were to overtake them in the division. 

Wild Card RaceBoston Red Sox: -450Seattle Mariners: -360New York Yankees: -330Texas Rangers: +115Cleveland Guardians: +320Kansas City Royals: +650Tampa Bay Rays: +950Minnesota Twins: +1800Los Angeles Angels: +2500Baltimore Orioles: +5000

The AL wild card race is going to be extremely fun to watch down the stretch of the season.

Entering Wednesday’s action, the Texas Rangers could overtake the New York Yankees, who are just a half-game ahead of them in the standings. New York has played under .500 ball over the last few months, and despite some trade deadline moves, it is fading fast in this market.

Oddsmakers project the Yankees to be the team that is currently holding a spot to be the closest one to drop out (-330 to make the postseason). 

While Cleveland, Minnesota, and others are long shots to make the playoffs, Texas is a team to watch since it has been elite at home (36-20) and still has 25 games at Globe Life Field left in the 2025 season. 

National League Playoff OddsDivision LeadersPhiladelphia Phillies: -3000Los Angeles Dodgers: -20000Milwaukee Brewers: -10000

All three of these division leaders appear to be locked into a playoff spot, as the implied probability for Philadelphia (the team with the worst odds) to make the playoffs is 96.77 percent.

There’s a chance that all three of these teams could lose their spot atop the division (Milwaukee has the largest lead at four games), but they’d all just fall into a wild card spot, barring a crazy run from the Reds or another fringe wild card team. 

Wild Card RaceChicago Cubs: -1400New York Mets: -650San Diego Padres: -575Cincinnati Reds: +250San Francisco Giants: +600St. Louis Cardinals: +1100Arizona Diamondbacks: +2500Miami Marlins: +3000Atlanta Braves: +5000

There is a lot less intrigue in the National League, as the Reds – who made some big moves at the deadline to acquire Ke’Bryan Hayes, Zack Littell, and others – are the only team that seems to have a chance to supplant New York, Chicago, or San Diego.

However, there is a lot of time left for a team like the Giants or Cardinals (both hovering around .500) to get hot and make some inroads in this race.

For now, Cincinnati is the only team at plus money that I’d consider in the NL playoff market. 

About a week after the Yankees were eliminated from the MLB playoffs by the Blue Jays, New York shortstop Anthony Volpe underwent surgery on Tuesday to repair a torn labrum in his left shoulder, the ' Joel Sherman and Greg Joyce reported on Wednesday.

Volpe suffered the injury back in May when making a diving play. He only missed one game, the day after the injury, and quickly returned to the field.

The Gold Glove winner is expected to be recovered in time for the 2026 season, although his return could be pushed back depending how his recovery goes.

Volpe had a rough end of the regular season as he was briefly benched while going through quite a slump. The shortstop ended the season with averages of .212/.272/.391, pretty on par with the rest of his young career. He'll have a lot of pressure on him when he returns in 2026 to up his game.

Davis Schneider blasted the most important home run of his life on Wednesday night, taking the first pitch he saw from Blake Snell over the left-field fence for a leadoff ambush to start Game 5. Vladimir Guerrero would follow suit with a homer of his own, allowing Toronto to enjoy a 2-0 lead before most fans had settled into their seats. The Blue Jays then cruised to a 6-1 victory as Trey Yesavage confounded the L.A. offense and Canada is one victory away from bringing the World Series trophy north of the border as the series shifts back to Toronto.

Schneider's long ball could very swell prove to be the moment the Blue Jays finally wrestled away control and overcame Shohei Ohtani's ridiculous one-man show. And if that happens, the highlight will have a helpful second angle thanks to Schneider's dad, who chose to record his son's first plate appearance even though Fox and other international broadcast rights partners also had cameras on the game.

But it's a good thing he did because the elder Schneider's reaction could not have been more pure. He also classily edited his language so the official account of Major League Baseball could share the clip more widely on its large platform.

This is exactly the type of thing one would expect from someone whose handle is "bballdadd44745." Years and years of doing GameChanger hones a baseball dad into a machine when their kid is at the plate, you can rest assured that the at-bat will be chronicled for internal use. And credit to pops for keeping it together as well as he did. There are tons of other dads out there who have larger reactions to a play in the third inning of an 11U game.

How can you not be romantic about baseball?

“I got a couple of on-drives in this innings and as a batsman, you know that you have to be doing a lot of things correct to hit an on-drive,” Agarwal says

Karthik Krishnaswamy in Hamilton16-Feb-2020Sometimes, you can tell a lot about a batsman by how he puts away a half-volley. The bowler was James Neesham, and the batsman was Mayank Agarwal, batting on 34. The ball was full and a little floaty, angling in towards off stump.Agarwal brought his bat down perfectly straight and presented its full face to the ball, which sped away to the straight boundary after bisecting umpire and non-striker. The straight drive to the on, the shot that made Sachin Tendulkar nod in approval whenever he played it, probably involuntarily but possibly not.This was the seventh four of Agarwal’s innings, and he had also hit a six by then. Some of those shots had come off better deliveries than this one, and some – such as an uppercut off Scott Kuggeleijn, played with both feet in the air – had required a greater exercise of his dexterity and hand-eye coordination.This, though, was perhaps the most important shot of his innings. This, and a virtual replica in Neesham’s next over, off a delivery of similar line but better length, not quite as full.”I got a couple of on-drives in this innings and as a batsman, you know that you have to be doing a lot of things correct to hit an on-drive,” Agarwal later said. “When I got a couple of those, it gave me the assurance that was required.”Agarwal was certainly in need of assurance. He had landed in New Zealand in the middle of January and batted 11 times since then, for India A, India, and the Indians. He hadn’t made a single fifty in those 11 innings.More than the scores themselves, the nature of some of his dismissals – particularly in the second and third ODIs – had pointed to a technical issue, wherein his trigger movement was getting him into too much of a closed-off position, with his front shoulder much further to the off side than his back shoulder, forcing him to play around his body and square up to compensate.Agarwal wasn’t too keen on dissecting the technical adjustments he’d had to make but revealed that he had indeed been getting too closed-off, and that he had worked on the issue with Vikram Rathour, India’s batting coach, after his early dismissal on the first day of this warm-up match.The efforts certainly seemed to bear fruit, never more emphatically than when he drove Neesham down the ground. No shot is better at telling batsmen that they are properly balanced, and properly aligned at the crease, than the straight- or on-drive. It tells them that their head isn’t falling over, and their front leg isn’t going too far across and getting in the way of their bat coming down straight. If he was still getting too closed-off, Agarwal might have had to play around his front pad, and work the same balls squarer, through midwicket or even square leg.The effect of being better aligned was apparent through the rest of his innings too – his footwork and weight transfer just looked more precise, whatever shot he played – and he flowed on to 81 before retiring at lunch. This may have been just a warm-up match, and one lacking first-class status, but runs are runs, and, perhaps more importantly in the lead-up to the first Test in Wellington, fluency is fluency.The two candidates to open with Agarwal, meanwhile, were both out to induckers from Daryl Mitchell, Prithvi Shaw bowled and Shubman Gill lbw. Both planted their front foot too firmly and both drove a little too loosely. But while Gill was out for his second low score of the match, Shaw made a shot-a-minute 39 off 31 balls, putting away even marginal errors in line and length, and more or less sealed his spot alongside Agarwal.

Acknowledgement without revelry seems to have been what Tom Dollery’s class of ’51 preferred

Paul Edwards18-Jun-2020July 24, 1951
Scorecard
July 31, 1951
Scorecard
Should you be walking along the wide concrete concourse which runs around and beneath the stands at Edgbaston, you will see many reminders of Warwickshire’s recent triumphs. Pictures of Brian Lara, Dermot Reeve, Allan Donald and Ian Bell enliven the dull walls and recall the county’s four championships and other trophies in the past quarter-century.But images revisiting the team’s more distant glories are harder to find. There is, for example, no comparable photograph of Fred Gardner, although maybe that is to be expected. “He is better known on the cricket fields of England as a plodding, conscientious and even tedious opening bat with an attenuated back-lift and a monumental patience,” wrote JM Solan of his hero in 1959. “His almost ascetic abstention from scoring has occasionally roused affectionate irritability in those under whom he has served.”Yet Solan, the cricket correspondent of the also knew that Gardner had played a host of valuable innings for Warwickshire and that his three centuries in 1951 had helped his side to one of the most significant title wins in the post-war era.But acknowledgement without revelry seems to have been what Warwickshire’s class of ’51 preferred. Their skipper, HE “Tom” Dollery, had been the first professional to be appointed to that post by a county club and two years later he had overseen the assembly of a squad, all of whom were paid to play cricket.The only amateur to represent Warwickshire in 1951 was the wicketkeeper, Esmond Lewis, and his one match took place nearly a fortnight after the title had been decided. And when appeared under Dollery’s name the following year, its author quickly scotched any idea that his book would be a vanity project: “It is not, in any sense, a ‘how we did it’, an account of special stratagems which enabled Warwickshire to win the County Championship in 1951. Modesty, if nothing else, would forbid the writing of such a book – modesty and the fact that Warwickshire look forward to 1952 in the knowledge that honours are hard to win and even harder to retain.” There was shrewd prescience in those final words. Dollery’s county did not finish higher than sixth in any of the next seven seasons.ALSO READ: Gillette Cup took Sussex captain’s fancyOthers were more effusive. Warwickshire’s 1952 annual report called the title win “a success in the best traditions of the game for a team playing perfectly together as a co-ordinated entity under the man who proved himself the greatest professional captain the game has known and one of the greatest natural cricket leaders of all time.”Norman Preston, the editor of Wisden, made Warwickshire’s skipper one of his cricketers of the year and considered his achievement again in his Notes: “Dollery showed that a paid player can become a captain in the real sense of the word. By his astute work, Dollery has raised the status of the professional just as Hobbs did in the days when every county had one dressing room for the paid and another for the unpaid.”Warwickshire’s captain probably appreciated Preston’s compliments, not least because they slightly shifted the attention away from him and towards the tightly-knit group of blokes who had played by far the best cricket in the country. But he also knew he had been a trifle fortunate. Six of his team had remained fit for all 28 championship matches and two others, the wicketkeeper, Dick Spooner, and the middle-order batsman, Bert Wolton, had missed only one game. Spooner and Wolton were two of five Warwickshire batsmen who scored over a thousand runs in a wet summer but none were invited to play for England against South Africa in a series the home side won 3-1. Wisden also noted that no Warwickshire cricketers were asked to play in July’s Gentleman v Players game, although that rather overlooked the obvious point that Dollery’s gentlemen were only eligible to represent the Players in any case.Perhaps even more usefully, Roy Tattersall’s form helped ensure that the selectors would not call on the leg-spinner, Eric Hollies, who was thus free to take 149 championship wickets that summer and to bowl an average of almost 50 overs in each match, even when hampered by an ankle injury later in the season. The balding medium-pacer, Charlie Grove, was the only other bowler to take 100 wickets and he formed a potent new-ball combination with the New Zealander, Tom Pritchard, who bowled perhaps 15mph quicker. Pritchard managed only 38 wickets in the first 13 games but took 36 in the next four and finished with 93 in a season curtailed by a shoulder injury.So instead of representing their country or appearing in an increasingly anachronistic contest, Warwickshire’s cricketers stayed fit and pledged themselves to the bear and ragged staff. Even their first names suggested a lack of pretension. There was Bert, Fred and Eric and there was Tom, Dick and Charlie. Gardner’s ponderous batting may have irritated the captain on occasions: “Get out or I’ll send someone in to run you out,” read one memorable message; but the captain knew the value of a man described by Donald Trelford as “the apotheosis of works league cricket, the most stolid and slowest of openers, his face like an unsmiling Bob Hope”. Perhaps so, but only Spooner and Dollery himself contributed more runs to the cause in 1951. It was “an extraordinary team of ordinary cricketers playing purposeful cricket,” said Dollery.”They didn’t seem ordinary to me,” responded Trelford in his wonderful essay, written over 30 years later and shining with childlike love. “Not Pritchard. Not Spooner, the left-handed opener who was also a in the old sense… He had a brisk walk between overs, hurrying with his body bent forward, his peaked cap and his big nose to the fore, gloved hands behind his back.”Warwickshire keeper Dick Spooner•The Sphere/Wisden Cricket Monthly/Getty ImagesAnd Warwickshire’s title-win was notable in other respects. Other counties, notably Yorkshire, who finished distant runners-up in 1951, pointed out that only Gardner and Grove out of Dollery’s regular squad had been born within the county boundaries. (Hollies came from Old Hill but that was in Staffordshire until 1966.) There were three New Zealanders and three others from the north-east. That latter trio included Alan Townsend, who made just 789 runs but pocketed 39 slip catches, some of them absurdly fine.In any case, Warwickshire felt their recruitment strategy was not something for which they needed to apologise. They were not poaching players from other first-class counties – Ray Weeks, the slow-left armer, came from Camborne – and at the previous year’s AGM the President, Dr Harold Thwaite, had said the policy was “breeding a spirit of emulation in Warwickshire youth in town and village”. It was a typically confident claim from an official at the club which was to launch its own football pool in 1953. That project, modelled in part on Northamptonshire’s scheme, was criticised by the moral establishment but by 1972 it had raised £2m, half of which had been spent on Edgbaston.Such enterprises were invaluable to the counties in the 1950s, a decade in which attendances at championship matches declined and the pressure for a briefer format of the game grew, even in the committee-rooms at Lord’s. But in Warwickshire’s great summer neither popular entertainments nor the weather could deter supporters who saw their team go to the top of the table on June 1st and stay there. The county also visited Stratford and Coventry but the crucial matches against Lancashire and Yorkshire which finally confirmed the dominance of Dollery’s team were both played at Edgbaston in late July. And ironically, perhaps, for a team without stars, Dollery scored a century in both contests.Over 25,000 spectators crowded into the ground on the Saturday of the Lancashire game but saw the home side put out for 184, Tattersall taking six wickets. Cyril Washbrook’s seven-hour 209 not out gave his team a lead of 149 and left Warwickshire with a draw as their only objective. They were 113 for 5 on the last day when Wolton joined Dollery in a stand of 68. Two other time-consuming stands with Pritchard and Grove followed and when the draw was agreed Dollery had completed his first hundred of the season.A quick trip to Taunton gave Warwickshire one of their six two-day wins in 1951 and the team returned to the Midlands to meet Yorkshire, four of whose players, Len Hutton, Frank Lowson, Willie Watson and Don Brennan were at the Headingley Test.For nearly two days it was a respectable contest. Yorkshire grafted their way to 249 in 126.4 overs on Saturday but Dollery’s second century in a week and fifties by Spooner and Jimmy Ord established a 113-run advantage. Two down with only ten runs to show for their efforts on Monday evening, Yorkshire collapsed to 97 all out the following morning, Hollies taking 5 for 47 and Weeks 3 for 3 on a wearing pitch. Leslie Duckworth’s superb history of Warwickshire cricket puts the attendance at 8000 on Tuesday and the total for the three days, including members, at 55,000. Certainly the number of paying spectators, 43,000, beat the record that had been set against Lancashire a week earlier. It was the home side’s fifteenth championship victory of the season and their first double over Yorkshire since 1890. Just over a fortnight later the title was sealed when Worcestershire won at Scarborough.The Birmingham Post produced a supplement to mark the local victory and asserted that the title “had been coming these last few seasons”. But the Manchester Evening News could have said much the same during most of the 1950s and on many occasions in the 80s and 90s. Theproblem was that the pennant never arrived at Old Trafford in those decades. Dollery, however, having complained at the AGM that his team were being labelled champions even before the clocks had gone forward, went about the business of proving the predictions absolutely correct. “The skipper”, wrote Trelford, “had the air of a man wholly at ease with himself, a true yeoman, a natural leader.” Match from the Day