Overhaul of junior leagues crucial for game's prosperity

CRICKET: The arena of sports is a competitive place at the moment with more and more cross-over of players between various athletic pursuits. These days, people seem much more likely to explore sports they did not grow up with rather than stick with those their parents taught them or those they learned in school.

There is a much wider range of summer activities available now, from kite surfing to softball, and the various organisers are luring participants away from the more established pursuits.

This presents a challenge for Irish cricket. On the one hand, it means that just because someone has attended Belvedere College or Bangor Grammar School does it does not automatically follow they will have a predisposition towards wielding the willow.

But on the other hand, it means that, with this greater competition for the hearts and minds of the sporting public, sports administrative authorities have a great opportunity to improve their product in order to retain existing players and attract new ones.

In order to do this, I feel the time is right for the Leinster Cricket Union to overhaul of the junior cricket leagues. One major complaint of many players from the lower divisions is that while they enjoy being involved in the game, they lament the fact it takes up their entire day.

The starting time of 1 p.m. or 1.30 p.m., depending on the division and stage of the summer, is too early to do anything meaningful with your Saturday morning and the finish time of around 8 p.m. is often too late to plan a night out by the time you change and have a drink with the opposition.

I hear on the grapevine the LCU will soon receive a proposal from one or two of the clubs outlining suggestions as to how the junior leagues could be improved. Here are some ideas I believe would make the game more attractive to players.

1. Scrap the slightly bizarre league system that calls its divisions things like Inter A and Middle B. What is wrong with calling them Senior Two, Division Two, and then continuing down the line until Junior C, which would be renamed Division 10? It seems to work in Leinster hockey without too much confusion.

2. Reduce the amount of overs in divisions below what is currently Senior Three to 40 overs per side. Reduce the number in Senior Two and Senior Three to 45 per side. Those extra 10 or 20 overs add little to the game and their removal would speed matches up by as much as an hour or more.

3. Restrict the maximum number of overs a bowler can bowl to force teams into fielding five bowlers. So, for 45-over games, the limit would be nine per bowler and for 40-over games, eight.

4. All matches at junior level (and senior level, for that matter) should begin earlier, preferably 11 a.m. With one break between innings, this means play should be over before 6 p.m., leaving people free to pursue other interests. I know some grounds are used on Saturday and Sunday mornings for youth cricket and in those cases, the lunchtime start is unavoidable. However, for mid-week games, the 1.30 p.m. start should be kept as workers then only have to take a half-day rather than a full-day's leave.

5. All junior matches should be played on artificial wickets. This would force bowlers to put the ball in the right spot rather than rely on a dodgy pitch to get people out. Batsmen would be able to play proper cricket shots, having faith that the bounce would be relatively true. It would also allow clubs to prepare better wickets for senior cricket as they would not have to worry about cutting tracks for junior teams.

Finally, in yesterday's Irish Times I wrote that with two wins over the weekend, Malahide went top of the WMK League. This was not correct - despite picking up 41 points with victories over Phoenix and The Hills, they are still seven behind the unbeaten North County. Mea culpa and thanks to Gerry Byrne for gently pointing out my mistake and apologies to everybody else.