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
One of our Club XIs was missing both skipper and vice a couple of weeks ago, and I was asked to stand-in for the day. After my post on dilatory over rates back in July, I had the unexpected opportunity to see if the Teesra could get a team through its overs at a decent rate.
First innings – 51 overs in a little over 3 hours (17 overs/hour); second innings – 25 overs in 90 minutes (before the final hour’s play – a touch under 17 overs/hour).
It can be done! (more…)
When I started this blog, I set myself a little (unwritten) rule. I would never write “it was better in the old days”…
So I am going to struggle with this next post…but here we go.
Why is the Club game so slow these days? It wasn’t like this when I was a lad.
(I said it was an unwritten rule. Now it is broken.)
I umpired a game last Sunday. 40 Overs a side. Start time was 1 PM. And we finally got in to tea at twenty to five.
There is a lively debate going on in my Club this autumn, as our League seeks opinions on the best form of cricket to encourage younger players to stay in the game after they leave the Colts set-up. Do we go with limited overs, because every one watches IPL and T20 and wants to play that way? Or can we come up with a formula to make “time” cricket more attractive?
I admit to being biased. I grew up playing time games (or “proper” cricket – there’s the bias!), and to me the dual challenge of scoring runs and taking wickets almost always makes for a more interesting game than the “simple” run chase of a over-limited match.
I enjoy T20. But I still think that the more consistently successful players are using skills from the longer game. And as a coach, I think young players will learn more varied skills by playing a variety of forms of the game.
But can “time” be made as attractive as T20 to the younger players? I think it can.
The Teesra 