Amateur Cricket Leagues: To join or not

In last few years another serious question has become a key part of the season planning -- whether we want to play in a league or not. League fixtures often are a sore experience given the unprofessional attitude of the players and league leadership in view of the exaggerated competitiveness of the matches. Together with this, the financial burden (usually 300-400 Euros) more than often discourages young students from joining clubs. So most teams in big cities reach a state of stagnancy and teams in smaller city remain deprived of the new talent so necessary for them to remain competitive. All in all it seems that the amateur cricket leagues they way they are run currently, are not really doing any good for the development of cricket at the club level in the south Germany. 

After a long slumber, FNCC is slowly waking up. For a small club like ours based in a small (but really beautiful) town like Freiburg, every season brings predictable challenges. For instance, every season starts with the news of player who had already left or will leave Freiburg soon. Sadly it has never happened the other way that there is a list of new players who are lining up. We usually rely on hope to get the season going. Other challenges are more manageable such as raising money for equipments, buying equipments, securing the ground contract and getting the practice going. 

In last few years another serious question has become a key part of the season planning -- whether we want to play in a league or not. 

In 2010 an amateur cricket league was floated in the state of Baden-Wuertumberg. It was supported by the German Cricket Board. There was a lot of excitement about it, perhaps being a new thing or because we were hoping for more organized and competitive games.

That season FNCC did not do too well. Still we bounced back after a disastrous start and ended up on the Vth place. In the T20 league we lost in the semifinal. We were for sure better than that. 

But we decided not to participate in the league in 2011. It was decision taken based on the way the league was being organized. First, in the name of competitiveness most teams were very hostile to each other. There was no mutual respect and winning was the sole aim as if their life depended on that. Combine this with the complete unprofessional attitude of the league leadership and untrained and unqualified umpires. Overall we thought that we play cricket more for the fun of it and love for the game and winning/losing is something that is just a part of the game. Essentially FNCC players wanted to leave the ground with a good feeling not filled with animosity towards the opposition.

Once we sat down and did the math, we found that we paid some 200+Euros to get 8/9 fixtures and in return we also lost the peace of mind that comes with playing cricket. So we decided to step out of the league. 

In 2011 we went solo and arranged out fixtures as we did without the league setup. We travelled a bit too much and played in total 12 games and lost just once. Perhaps the best season for the FNCC. It was a lot of fun and everyone enjoyed their cricket. So we decided to continue with the same experiment in the 2012 season.

This time around it was a bit sore experience. This was primarily because we could not arrange many fixtures. We had a great season going by cricket, but we mainly played Basel CC (multiple times -- in process forging a great relationship with them).

We noticed that most of the teams in our neighborhood in Germany and Switzerland were part of their respective league. Typically the league schedule is full and there is little space to have the so called friendly fixtures. This awareness was very disappointing and depressing. There was only one way out of this. 

But we were sure that the leadership of the Baden-Wuertemberg leagues was practically the same with different faces and therefore that league was not an option. So we decided to go with our friends in Basel and participated in the Swiss League, which we later learned was one of the two leagues currently in a legal battle over their claims to be 'the swiss cricket league'.

It started out to be a good experience, although a bit expensive in terms of money. However, the way we were treated in the semi-final of the league has completely destroyed our faith in these cricket leagues runs by amateurs and people with vested interests which most of the times lie way outside the cricket field. 

So we are back in the state to decide whether to go solo or become part of the sham some people consider a league. 

I do not want to appear a capitalistic person here. But if we do the math we find out that the participation in any league costs something in the range of 300 Euros and costs for 'Neutral Umpires' which in my view usually are the most undesirable players of their teams. In addition we have buy the so called league balls. So all in all we get to pay something in the range of 600 Euros. The 'other' swiss leagues costs go as far as 800 euros. 

In return what do we get? Guaranteed fixtures in the range of 6-10 matches depending on number of teams and how far we proceed in the league. There is not real prize money for the clubs who win or reach to the semifinals. Clubs like ours are always strapped for money and increasing membership fees only dissuades new players from joining. Moreover, many players just do not turn up because they find the hostility that comes in the name of competitiveness very very discouraging. So I wonder how do these leagues help the development of the game and teams. 

More important I wonder where does the league membership money go? It is certainly not spent in terms of subsidising the club expenses or any other facilities -- at least FNCC has yet to enjoy the benefit of this membership fees. 

Typically the leagues are run by people who are not there for the development of cricket but to exert their authority and in most cases completely unjust authority. Players who play in these leagues try to use cricket a way to boost their ego and if they are being hampered by others in reaching this goal, either by better play or by the laws of the games, the do not stop from breaching the whole essence of cricket. 

By contrast, the non-league based matches are far more fun. People act like guests and hosts as opposed to two teams with sole goal to defeat the other team. In most cases irrespective of the result of the game, players from the opposition sit together share a drink and discuss the game. The short talks which often mature into long terms friendships. 

With the financial burden (membership fees are raised from the players) and unfriendly nature of matches in many ways discourages new players to come in the fold. This leaves teams in big cities stagnant because people do not move so much, and are in a position to bear the financial costs. In the smaller cities there are more consequences -- if new players cannot afford to play then the cricket is greatly reduced in the places as teams in smaller cities are usually composed of students who come to the University for a short duration (one or two seasons).

So I wonder how these amateur cricket leagues are run and more importantly the higher organizations like German Cricket Board and Swiss Cricket Board must review their policies to better run the club cricket. What is important is that there is space for teams who do not want to play in any leagues to find fixtures. That is, the league schedule should have enough free days to accommodate friendly games. Second, it would help if the leagues fees could be reduced if not completely removed and teams are informed how the money is being used.

More suggestions are of course welcome.

The conundrums will continue throughout the season but I am positive that we will find a way to maximize the Cricket and Fun factors, despite the increasing complexity of the problem.

right arm over
Arvind

What rain could not do this time, Stadt Verwaltung Freiburg did: And did it even better

There is something fundamentally wrong this season. We are in the month of June and so far not a single match has been played without rain threats. And today when German Rain Gods were on our side (at least it appeared so), and we were hoping for a full match under the blue sky, it turned out that the German Rain Gods had outsourced their job of hating cricket to the soccer gods and those who are responsible for creating a chaos in German organization.

Otherwise, how likely it is that a German mixes up his/her calender, that too, a German bureaucrat? That is what happened on Sunday last. The officer responsible for assignment of the ground at the seepark double booked the ground and before we could start our proceedings there were more than 16 teams competing for a strange version of a soccer tournament.

We, the people of the sub-continent, are not known for our managerial abilities to handle organizational problems. We had a living proof of that on the field today.

As soon as we arrived at the ground we knew that cricket would be impossible. The soccer people had occupied the ground before us. There was no way we could take off nearly 100 people off the field. And it was not their fault as well that the ground was double booked. 

But we tried anyways. With same arguments again and again. It is obvious that if an argument does not work once, it wont work again, if the situation has not changed.

The visiting team was another bunch of people who just wanted to just take advantage of the situation and go home with the points, without playing the game. 

Common sense suggests that today it was due to some factors not in any way in our direct control, that the ground was not available for cricket. This to me is similar to a whole day of rain scenario. I understand that if it rains whole day without any ball bowled, the points would be split. It did not rain today but the ground was not available for uncontrollable factors, with no fault of ours. It would have been our fault if our teams was not prepared, in any form, to host the opposition.

So common sense says that the points should be split.

The opposition and some strange person acting as an umpire, just could not even follow a common sense argument. How can one argue with such bunch on logical grounds.

After much deliberation as was expected, both teams made written statements to be sent to league administration.

From our side, we offered a shorter match (25 overs) which the visitors declined. With that option out, we argued for declaring the match abandoned. The opposition, while refusing to play a shorter game, maintained that the match should be awarded to them.

The  league administration that will look into our statements, is a joke to begin with. Every new situation is reinforcing this impression.

There are no proper rules for adjusting scores for rain affected matches. There are no rules to account for situation like that of Sunday last, when a game is to be abandoned for factor not in direct control. The formula used to calculate the net run rate makes no sense. And so on... I wonder if there is a human who really knows the exact set of rules and regulations of the league. I am sure we will keep discovering new shortcomings of the league with every match.

It is time some really concerned people get involved in the organization of the league. When the chief coordinator refuses to take any calls on Sundays and still want every decision to be made via him, you can just imagine.

All and all not a good day of cricket.


Arvind
PS: Raghav suggested the title of the blog. Thanks Raghav.

When cricket went onesided

The match (or the mis-match) lasted 12 overs. We took 8 overs to take 9 wickets of the opposition and conceded 31 runs, of those at least 9 were from wides. Then chased the score in 3.5 overs with the help of 9 extras.

The visitors from Leonberg were not at all ready to play a match. They were short of one player. Their team was under-prepared and understrength. It is very likely that they failed to raise a full strength team for an away fixture on a Thursday (although a holiday in south Germany).

We have, in past played against much more ill-prepared teams than the Leonberg team. In all those attempts, having accessed the strength of the opposition we invariably reduced the intensity and tried to create a match out of a mismatch. I recall reducing a team to 11-6 and then Matt and myself were taken off the attack and multiple similar instances.

Not in this case. The reason -- well, we wanted to get our points for the Twenty20 league and on top wanted to make sure that we improve our average. So in this process we just ignored cricket and focused on mere numbers. 

Did we do wrong? No, everybody in that situation would have done the same. 

But are numbers greater than Cricket. My answer is that no. The competition in the league forced us to take on such ruthless approach which was clearly not within the spirit of Cricket. In being ruthless and clinical in our victory we just respected the league system. 

At same time I would like to add that Leonberg did not act properly when they fielded such a team. It cannot be said that they had a bad day. They were just understrength. Except for a couple of player none of the opposition deserved their place. Teams that are part of the league should act in more responsibility and respect the fact that the league is in place to increase competition.

We did realize that our clinical attitude was perhaps not in the right spirit, so we did well to play a practice game with the guests.

It is difficult to find out what went good and not so good when we play such an opposition.

Tomorrow is a far more important game. We have only won one game out three for the 40 over matches league. The opposition is orders of magnitude better than the one we played on Thursday last, if rumors and score sheets have to be believed. So we really have to switch gears and secure a win tomorrow to remain in the hunt for the championship.

Sagir's heroics go in vain: But what an inning and what a match!

Winning may be rated as the highest pursuit, but generally in competitive sports and particularly in cricket, winning the respect of the opponents despite losing, is equally important. Cricket goes beyond winning and losing. The history is full of team striving to secure a draw or even after the series is settled, the losing team playing for honor.

It is difficult to chose between winning a contest and winning the respect of the opponents. The matter is simple when you can have both. Winning the contest without winning the respect of the opponents is not as satisfying. Similarly, if you gain the respect of the opposition despite losing, the loss becomes more bearable.

Two batsmen and a partnership took the game away from us, when we were sitting comfortable having taken 5 wickets for 90 runs in 20 overs. While Janarden rode clearly on his luck to reach a hundred, as reflected in at least three dropped catches, in Umair's case the luck factor was not that  explicit. I think every bowler from our side knew what to bowl to Umair but somehow it took a little too long to get that one delivery. These two batsmen irrespective of there luck or our lack of that, took the match very far from us. By the time Umair's stumps were undone the damage has been done, and we did well to restrict the opposition to 251 runs.

Rajesh was our standout bowler with very effective support from Raghav. Vijay and Sagir chipped in their share. I had yet another disappointing match. It is time that I have a serious look at my bowling, my team needs more from me than few tidy, wicket-less overs in the first spell. Vijay's gamble of starting our bowling with Adnan seem to work when in his second over he took a wicket. But from then on it was a sharp fall downhill and he finished that successful over with seven wides.

When Janarden and Umair were taking apart our bowling, the situation in the field was very calm. Vijay had a great effect. He kept trying to rotate the bowling, adjust fielding, without any signs of panic in his action and neither did he let the team panic. I think that is what good captains are supposed to bring to the field.

Chasing 252 runs in 40 overs is not easy and we did not start properly. We lost Ratish one of our strong batsman, due to a terrible misunderstanding between Craig and him. It was Craig's call and he was yelling 'no' from the middle of the pitch. Rehan was promoted to bat at number three. We were seeing the effect of a new captain. Rehan reinforced the trust Vijay had shown in him in the best possible manner by scoring quickfire yet sensible 38 runs with four sixes. With him attacking it was a strange sight to have a quite Sagir on the wicket. But Sagir was determined not to be deterred by anything around him. After Rehan wickets fell at regular interval and at one point we were scoring at more than the required run rate but were left with only two wickets and more than 100 runs to score. Some poor calls (Purab and Najib) from the umpire did the damage.

Then started the best part of the match. Rajesh is hardly a batsman to rely on. But what an inning he played. All those improvised shots kept bringing very useful runs and for the first time generated realistic hope to pull off a great victory. When he left we needed 28 runs. I went in, survived a couple of balls and scored four runs. Next over, Sagir who for the first time lost faith in his batting partners, hit a powerful boundary only to be out on the next ball.

The opposition celebrate a well deserved victory. We finally has something to cling on to, despite losing. Admittedly, we did not deserve to win after dropping six catches -- basically everyone who had an opportunity dropped one. In addition, four of our batsmen did not score (Ratish, Vijay, Purab and Adnan). There were three players who deserved a win Sagir, Rajesh and Rehan. Their frustration was obvious.

Those in our team with less experience in playing 40 over matches, must have realized that there is nothing permanent in cricket, one partnership can take the match away irreversibly. However, the match is not over until its actually over and as long as you are on the wicket runs will come and take to closer to the target. Cricket is a team game where individual performances can override the team performance and that is what Sagir, Rajesh from our side and Umair and Janarden from the opposition, demonstrated.

The most important part of the match for us was the character our team displayed. They again reinforced the belief that we do have the ability and we are not just push overs. We may lose a match but we will fight and the opposition has to work extra to take the victory from us.

Everyone who was part of the match will remember it for a long time. Well done Nomads.

right arm over

Arvind

Then the Nomads Won: First victory of the season

Emily Dickinson wrote:

Success is counted sweetest

By those who ne'er succeed. 

An illustration of this beautiful poem could be seen at the seepark ground, Freiburg on the afternoon of Sunday, May 16,2010.

Nomads took a full season and four matches in this one, under Sikander's captaincy to secure a victory against a decent side. What a shame that the team captain who had led the team through one of the worst patch, was not there to savor the moment. The players who were part of the team in the last season finally got to taste victory and it was easy to see the significance of the win.

In a somewhat relevant dimension this victory also meant that now we have won a match in two we have played so far in the BWCV league. It was important to win the match to keep the hopes alive in the league and not to dive too deep in the league table.

Finally Nomads showed what they are actually capable of. We defeated a team that had won two of it previous league game and was leading the points table. The victory margin clearly reflects how one sided affair the match turned out to be.

Starting with a run-out in the very first over, Nomads kept getting breakthroughs at regular intervals. To chase 154 runs in 40 overs is not difficult in our field, but rain was an obvious fear. For some strange reason, the organizers have adopted a two decade old rain-rule which has been proved consistently retarded and useless. There was a reason why ICC adopted the Duckworth-Lewis rain rule. But not the BWCV, they still want to live in the dark ages of rain-rules.

With the overcast skies, Nomads batsmen had a single minded goal -- to stay up with the required run rate. That is what exactly happened. For one the German Rain Gods helped us by forcing the opposition to conceded a heap of extra runs and at one point we were cruising along at a run rate of 9 per over. Although we lost a couple of wickets in succession, Vijay who was playing his first match this season after a string of 'self-invited injuries' ensured that the lower order was not exposed and without any drama he took the Nomads home.

Besides, Vijay and Sagir's batting in my opinion one aspect that won us the game was our fielding. It was just a superlative effort. Field placement was perfect. In the point and gully region several 10s of runs were saved. I think Vijay was again the hero of field setting. Sikander more or less gave the control of field to Vijay and Sagir and that worked for us. If not for that field setting we would have been chasing a score in excess of 180 and that would have been a tough target in rain and heavy ball.

In the light of the win I do not want to ignore the fact that our fast bowling attack is not looking threatening enough. In the last match, Rajesh did well to control runs but he failed to take wickets. My terrible form continued and it is getting worrisome now. I had a good spell in the start but then on I was completely useless. With every over I conceded more runs. My bowling in the middle over is a reminder of Ajit Agarkar, who has a knack of bowling 4 amazing deliveries and still he finishes an over with 6-8 runs. I need to work on it really hard. I think it is psychological, I just hate the cricket ball we use in these matches. The cricket balls that we got from the Deutche-Cricket-Bundes (DCB) are complete disgrace. As soon as you hit the seam on the wicket the seam opens up and after few overs there is no chance for seam bowlers.

I have to say a word for the neutral umpire. It is indeed a very good idea. It is true that it costs Euros 25 per team to have a neutral umpire but it is worth it.

They say winning is a habit. Nomads now have secured a perfect victory to inspire them for the next games. But Nomads ought to remember that winning a match is just one thing and give the nature of the game and the world, it may even be a chance. To prove that it is not chance and they have it in them, they must get on to a winning track now...

right arm over

Arvind