 Some strong performances for the seconds at the start of the 1996 season, including scores of 77 and 81 not out in a match against the Marylebone Cricket Club Young Cricketers, and a finger injury suffered by Piper, saw him regain a place in the Warwickshire first team in June.He remained in the first team for the rest of the season, playing as a specialist batsman when Piper returned to the side, and scored three half-centuries in first-class cricket, including his highest first-class score to that point, 81 runs scored against Nottinghamshire, during a match in which he also remained 65 not out in the second innings.Towards the end of the 1996 season, Warwickshire's captain Dermot Reeve was forced to retire with a chronic hip injury.