Category: Good Cricket

as opposed to bad cricket, of which there is too much; very subjective — my “Good Cricket” might bore you to tears, but it is still good for me

New ECB hubs with Government funding? What really matters?

With the Essex Over 60s 1st XI due to play Yorkshire Vets at Bradford Park Avenue last week†, I was reminded of the recent news about the new cricket centre in Bradford, and the (then) Government’s promise of £35m funding to support “grassroots” cricket.

The talk of “16 new hubs by 2030” was, perhaps, all too reminiscent of the promise to build “40 new hospitals for the NHS”. And with the demise of the Conservative government, it might be that this funding never does come through.

But I do wonder if the emphasis on investing in building new cricket hubs was ever really the best strategy.
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23 July, 2024
On the ball. A thought experiment.

With apologies to any fans of ITV’s, now abandoned, On the Ball football highlights programme, what follows is a consideration of the ideal cricket ball.

The post comprises a series of thought experiments, with little (no) actual research or science to support them…but there might be some hypotheses that could be worth further investigation.
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30 April, 2024
Review — “Something in the Water: The Story of England’s Football Talent Hotbeds”. And some thoughts on “natural” talent development environments.

Interesting conversation on Xtter last week on talent development in English football, and the next generation of superstars.

So Callum Murray’s Something in the Water: The Story of England’s Football Talent Hotbeds provided some very timely background reading, with a case-study of the emergence of south London as a hotbed of soccer talent development,

Murray identifies some of the factors common across old and new hotbeds — working class communities with strong community support for children and their aspirations, space (and time) to play — but goes on to address some of the reasons why south London is now outperforming areas in the north of England that have traditionally produced disproportionate numbers of top footballers.

And there could, perhaps, be cross-over for cricket, and other sports, looking for new talent.
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19 April, 2024

Category: Good Cricket

New ECB hubs with Government funding? What really matters?

On the ball. A thought experiment.

Review — “Something in the Water: The Story of England’s Football Talent Hotbeds”. And some thoughts on “natural” talent development environments.