December 2014

Excitement building for Leinster Lightning’s opening fixture!

56 Who has taken 56 stumpings in 37

matches?

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All Clubs Cheat Paul Reynolds

LIGHTING UP THE PROVINCEOdran Flynn looks at the Interprovincial Series, past and future.

CountyChampionship?Ger Siggins

INDOORFIREWORKSEoghan Delany

WELCOME to the first issue of our new Magazine, a webzine for the Cricket Leinster community.

Having started my cricket writing career over 30 years ago with a magazine I wrote, photographed, typed and laid out myself before collecting stacks of sheets from the printers and then folding, stapling it, and selling it around the grounds, the notion of the webzine has been hard to get the head around.

Happily Rob O’Connor shows a command over modern design line and length that surpasses even that he displays on summer weekends for Leinster CC.

I would like to thank Henry Tighe and Eddie Lewis of Cricket Leinster for asking me to edit this venture, and to all those who freely gave their excellent contributions including Odran Flynn, Ryan Bailey, Paul Reynolds, Eoghan Delany and Mark Robinson.

I hope you enjoy the magazine and hope even more that you contribute to what I hope will become an important forum for views and comment. When I set up Irish Cricket Magazine in June 1984, I sent a copy to Christopher Martin-Jenkins at The Cricketer who wrote back with some advice – play yourself in before you play your shots. I’m not sure his advice holds in an era of Twenty20.

We hope to produce the Cricket Leinster Magazine several times a year and will be back again in good time for the start of the 2015 season.

MESSAGE FROM THE

EDITOR

Ger Siggins has been writing about cricket in Leinster for 30 years and has covered the Irish team on its travels all over the world. He has written four books on the sport and contributes regularly to the Sunday Independent, Irish Daily Star, CricketEurope, ESPNCricinfo and the Slog Sweep. His playing days with Trinity are long behind him but he can still recall every ball of his sole senior appearance.

Front cover image by ©INPHO/Ryan Byrne

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Odran Flynn is cricket correspondent of Newstalk 106-108FM and a former player and president of Phoenix CC.

Mark Robinson is the co-creator and co-presenter of the Slog Sweep. In his day job he is programme director of East Coast FM.

Eddie Lewis is a long-serving administrator in Leinster and a board member of Cricket Ireland. As an opening batsman with Merrion he scored more than 7,000 runs in 351 senior appearances between 1967 and 1994.

Ryan Bailey is a sports journalist who contributes to Metro, ESPNCricinfo, CricketEurope and other sports websites and spent the summer of 2014 covering the county scene in England for Cricinfo. A prolific all-rounder with YMCA, he was the leading run scorer with the club in 2011 with 673 at 42, and was a member of the league and cup double winning 3rd XI in 2012.

Eoghan Delany is captain of the Clontarf first XI and the first in that club to lift the Bob Kerr Irish Senior Cup. In his two years at the helm in Castle Avenue he has also won the Senior Cup and Alan Murray Cup. He captained Trinity for three years prior to that, and won Irish caps at U13, U15, U17 and U19.

Paul Reynolds is a member of the Cricket Leinster executive and a respected member of Leinster CC active as a player, umpire and administrator. He is the genius behind the Cricket Leinster results and live coverage service.

Rob O’ Connor fits captaining Leinster 2nds around a busy schedule of coaching the YMCA Academy and designing this magazine (brand.ie). His work as a photographer (rocshot.ie) has also been widely acclaimed and you will see some of his photos in the following pages.

If you, or your company, would like to advertise in the next edition of this magazine, please contact us at admin@cricketleinster.ie

CONTRIBUTORS

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Lightning Lights Up The ProvinceTwo seasons of Interprovincial cricket has seen the Leinster side win four of the six competitions. Odran Flynn assesses the competition to date and points a way forward

FOLLOWING the conclusion of this year’s Newstalk Inter-provincial competitions it is worthwhile reflecting on their value to the development of Irish cricket.

Given that the prime purpose of reviving the series in 2013 was to bridge the gap between club and international cricket there are 13 good reasons why they can be deemed to have been a success. Thirteen is the number of players named in the original 18 man squad selected for the acclimatisation tour of Australasia, who played at least one match in the inter-pros over the past two seasons.

Nine of the 13 turned out for Leinster Lightning, three for North-West Warriors with Andrew White being the sole representative of Northern Knights. The predominance of Lightning players in that 13 is largely due to the fact that they won four of the six competitions and in both seasons were on the cusp of a clean sweep. That opportunity was lost by a lacklustre performance in the final game of last season against the Warriors, which handed the 50 over title to the Knights, and a washed out final day double header at Pembroke this season in the T20 competition.

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With the immediate focus on the upcoming World Cup the performances in the 50 over trophy bore the closest scrutiny and the Lightning players stood up to the test by winnings all four of their games. The significance to the players of the value of the inter-pros was epitomised by Andrew Balbirnie who, despite heavy commitments as captain of Middlesex second XI, ensured that he was available for all four of Lightning’s games and was duly rewarded with being named as Man of the Series having topped the runs aggregate table with 206. Indeed Stuart Thompson (112) in fifth spot was the only non -Lightning player to make the

top five in the runs aggregate table, behind joint second placed Andrew Poynter (132) and Kevin O’Brien with John Anderson (115) in fourth spot. Lee Nelson (101) in sixth place was the leading run getter for the Knights.

The experienced Andrew White and Albert van der Merwe with six wickets apiece were the leading bowlers and both had economy rates below four. With Ireland crying out for a wrist spinner the performance of Yaqoob Ali, who qualifies next season, was notable as he took 5 wickets at 15.2 with an economy rate of 3.86 in Lightning’s final two games of the season.

Over the course of the two seasons five players got their first Ireland caps on the back of performances in the inter-pros with two of these, Andy McBrine and Craig Young going on to make the acclimatisation squad. The three who missed out on the tour, Nick Larkin, Chris Dougherty and Eddie Richardson will be determined to catch the selectors eye again in next season’s tournaments and in the case of Larkin and Dougherty will be targeting the Intercontinental Cup as the three day format is more their forte which is a position that could also be attributed to John Anderson.

In some ways Anderson could

be deemed the most unlucky not to make the Australasia trip as across all formats he has accumulated the most runs (749) over the two seasons and he didn’t play a single T20 match. The only other player to top 700 runs was Andrew Poynter (701) while Chris Dougherty with 661 was the only other batsman who passed 600 runs.

Max Sorensen (47) and Eddie Richardson (41) were the leading wicket takers with Andy McBrine (37), Albert van der Merwe (35) and James Cameron-Dow (34) also standout performers. In Cameron-Dow’s case he wasn’t eligible to play in the limited overs formats in 2013 so he had less opportunity than the others. As is the case with several of the batsmen his strength is in the three day game and his 18 wickets in that format this season, when he bowled 22 overs more than anyone else, saw him top the table and he will be challenging for an Intercontinental Cup spot next year.

All-rounders are key elements in all successful teams and several players made significant contributions in this area. Andrew White (523 runs, 31 wickets), Andy McBrine (439 and 37), Max Sorensen (330 and 47), John Mooney (285 and 32) and Johnny Thompson (559 and 20) regularly did the job of two men for their team and all but Thompson made it to Australasia. There haven’ t been many more talented players than Thompson in domestic cricket in recent years and had his career taken a different

Five players got their first Ireland caps on the back of performances in the inter-pros

©INPHO/James Crombie

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path there is little doubt that he would have got many Ireland caps. In the first inter-pro of the season in The Hills I watched him bowl one of the most hostile spells of the season and this in a game that had Craig Young, Stuart Thompson and Peter Chase on show. Earlier he had blasted an unbeaten 66 from just 47 balls which was instrumental in setting Lightning a formidable target.

This was the same game that saw Andrew Balbirnie produce the classiest innings I observed in this year’s competition when his not out run a ball hundred helped see his side squeak home. Only the innings of Andrew Poynter, who also made an unbeaten century in the decisive penultimate match in Waringstown compared, and that was more about belligerence than the languid stroke play of Balbirnie.

There is no denying the value of the inter-pros but it is still not the finished article. As was demonstrated in the five matches Ireland played this summer without the county players there is still too great of a gap between the inter-pros and the international arena. Leinster Lightning have been the most successful largely because they have the most talented and experienced group of players. They were able to call on nine international players in their first two 50 matches which give them a decisive edge and the difficulty they have is having to leave out many of the talented younger players in the province, several of whom would have no difficulty getting a place in either of the other two teams.

North-West Warriors have gone down the route of building a team primarily around promising younger players and have clearly made progress with success in the T20 competition and three players in the Ireland squad. One of those, Craig Young, has revived his career by coming back home after an injury strewn period with Sussex and is now arguably Ireland’s second best seam bowler.

Northern Knights have only Andrew White in the Ireland squad largely because they have a surfeit of players who are trying to or have recently qualified for Ireland. Larkin, Cameron-Dow and Nathan Waller fit into this category as did until recently Craig Ervine who has now decided that Zimbabwe is his future after all. Of the three unions the NCU relies more heavily on pros than any other and consequently not enough younger players are getting the opportunity to break through. There is no problem with players

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qualifying for Ireland but I have always maintained that they have to better than the home based players to warrant preferment for representative honours.

The three team format was fine for starting off but I believe that it requires at least one more team to ensure that all of the best current players and equally importantly those with the greatest potential are getting as much exposure as possible to the highest level of competition available.

There will of course be those in each union who would view the inter-pros as an unwelcome distraction from their own domestic club competitions which they would regard as having greater relevance than supplying players to step on the rungs of the international ladder. However if the ultimate goal of the inter-pros is to be the vanguard for first class and eventually Test cricket then they will have to be persuaded or else ignored. Potentially the success of the Ireland team can generate sufficient funds to raise all boats and all cricket lovers on the island can benefit.

The very welcome sponsorship of the Ireland Cricket Academy by Shapoorji Pallonji opens up the possibility of a fourth inter-pro side coming from the development ranks and some of the funding could defray the operational cost of that team. To provide guidance to the young players they could be bolstered by a couple of experienced men such as Albert van der Merwe and Nigel Jones who would be of more value here than to their province who need to develop replacements for them. They could also select players who are slightly above the Academy age threshold but not getting a chance to make their provincial side. No stone should be left unturned to get the best playing against the best.

Leinster Lightning has shown the way with their professionalism and Cricket Ireland has to ensure that the others are given every opportunity to catch up. The inter-pros are a qualified success and that will become unqualified when the quality of the players is such that the county based players are under pressure for their places when Ireland squads are announced.

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Stephen McCarthy / SPORTSFILE

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Cricket’s growth stunting

conundrumAlthough figures show swelling participation levels, there can be no dressing up an increasingly alarming trend that is afflicting the sport, writes Ryan Bailey

SUCH has been the growth of cricket in this country, the facts and figures designed

to flatter and stimulate are barely required to affirm the glaringly obvious. Participation levels have hit unparalleled heights and stumps are being pitched in suburbs and towns in which cricket would have been outlandish only a short time ago.

No other sport has experienced as much development and expansion, both on and off the field, as much as cricket over the last few years and the surge in popularity shows no sign of relenting. However, potential is no guarantee of success. As much as Cricket Ireland’s development programme is built upon widening the resource pool, the biggest challenge is in retaining those

Josh van der Flier. ..completed his progression through Leinster’s academy to the first team as he made his full debut against Zebre. Rugby’s gain is cricket’s loss

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already in the system.

Of the 25,000 children playing cricket across the island of Ireland this year, how many will still be involved in the sport in five, 10, 15 years’ time? The answer, according to a report on Ireland’s sporting participation, is very few. The drop-out rate, across all sports, currently exceeds the rate at which people are taking up sport.

Cricket, despite all the fanfare surrounding the rapidly-growing popularity, is no exception. No surveys or statistics are required to know that a perpetual battle with the traditional sports, which leads to the alarmingly high drop-out rate, continues to stunt the sport’s growth on these shores.

As the national team prepare to resume their on-field endeavours, Cricket Ireland must now recognise that it finds itself in an equally significant battle at grassroots level. The battle isn’t against football or rugby - that would prove a futile exercise - but against the trend that sees players forget their boyhood cricketing ambitions and consign their whites to the attic.

The evidence from the Economic and Social Research Institute’s

extensive survey shows participation in regular sporting activity is almost universal during the primary school years for both male and females. What happens in the formative years is, essentially, what matters most. It would be easy to become entangled in endless graphs and statistics while trying to make sense of why the transition from adolescence into adulthood leads us to become disenchanted by previously obsessive activities but scratch beneath the surface and the reasons are obvious.

It’s not just an issue that afflicts cricket and it’s certainly not one that solely arises in Ireland but the recent developments at ICC boardroom level has substantially heightened the requisite for Ireland to produce competent cricketers beyond the current crop. With a small resource pool as it is, they can ill-afford to let prospective internationals slip through the system.

In Italy last week, Josh van der Flier - a promising youth cricketer with YMCA - completed his progression through Leinster’s academy to the first team as he made his full debut against Zebre. Rugby’s gain is cricket’s loss after he was forced to give up the latter once the possibility of furthering his rugby career arose.

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“It just wasn’t possible to juggle the two sports,” He said. “I really enjoyed playing cricket and miss it a lot but when it came to choosing, there was obviously more chance of me progressing in rugby.”

Jordan Coghlan, an Ireland U19 player who was good enough to earn a trial at Hampshire, faced a similar dilemma three years ago and also opted for rugby.

Of course, there are common factors - beyond sporting reasons - that makes the commitment of playing cricket at senior level difficult. College and work commitments, relocating to pastures new and increased family responsibilities are all attributable to the dropout rate but according to research compiled by the England and Wales Cricket Board, there are others.

“There are a number of factors but from our research, we found that the ‘offer’ of cricket isn’t right for many teenagers. Once their youth level days are over, the chance to play with their friends in a social environment is reduced significantly,” Chris Lock, the ECB’s Participation Manager, said.

“There are no short-term or high impact solutions to this problem because it’s more about helping to bring about a culture change where young players are really valued within clubs, and clubs begin to do more to keep them involved and engaged.”

Almost half of those asked by the ECB, as part of its 2014 National Cricket Playing Survey, said the length of the game is a deterrent. There are several roads to the Divorce Courts for newlyweds but ten-hour Saturdays may be one of the quickest ones. In the last year alone, there was an estimated 10% drop in playing levels among 18-25 year-olds.

Closer to home, there is a similar situation. In Leinster, there were just 120 registered players in the U19 age bracket this year while a mere 25% were under the age of 25. This is not a conundrum that has only reared its head recently but because there are no obvious solutions, the number of players slipping out of the game will continue to rise unless something is done.

Although it may seem irrelevant given the vast differences between our cricketing cultures, the ECB has recently developed two new key products that could be worth adopting. A player retention programme called “Stay in the

Game” is an online toolkit for clubs and provides advice around engaging with young players. It may seem too straightforward and even trivial but it is clear clubs don’t treasure the future as much as they should.

The current cricket landscape is thriving and there are the opportunities are boundless but perhaps there is too much emphasis on winning. 60% of 14-18 year-olds surveyed by the ECB say that 20 overs is enough with 90% of under 25s claiming they wanted to play more recreational cricket in a non-competitive environment.

If you go to training, perform painfully tedious drill-after-drill and get a duck at the weekend or the coach constantly hammers your mistakes, after a while you’re going to think, “do I really want to be here?” A new competition launched by the ECB has been designed to allow teenagers play cricket in a social environment on their own terms.

The competition, after a year of piloting, will begin next year and mirrors the keys values contained within the toolkit. The U19 Twenty20 competitions allows young players to take ownership of their club side, play with their peers and create a T20 Blast (England’s domestic competition) style atmosphere. Programmes need to fit opportunities to participate around busy lives and this is what the ECB is hoping to address with this new grassroots competition. 56% of those involved in the test-run said they are more likely to play again in 2015.

With a possible ascension for Ireland on the horizon, the need to breed a greater calibre of player on a consistent basis cannot be concealed. More specifically, the retention of younger players already with a rich cricketing education needs to be made a priority or else all the work of the past few years will matter little.

At present, there is no evidence to suggest the next cohort of Irish cricketers will be any different to their lost predecessors. Cricket Ireland and the various development organisations need to work aggressively in engaging both new and current players and not just the former.

The ECB’s Stay in the Game toolkit for clubs can be accessed at www.ecb.co.uk/stayinthegame

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I originally got involved in indoor cricket in January 2013, partially out of interest, partially because it seemed a reasonably quick-fix preparation for the upcoming outdoor season. I expected a leisurely challenge, one that would ease me back into the game with little exertion needed on my part.

Of course, I quickly realised that, although the basic skills of the outdoor and indoor versions remain, the pace and frantic nature of each ball and over allows no such thing. Under the summer sun, perhaps I drill a ball over mid-on and stand and admire whilst a fielder trudges off to retrieve the ball from the rope. Indoors, however, said fielder turns in anticipation and might throw himself full stretch to catch the ball off the back wall. He misses, but his teammates scarper to fire the ball at the non-strikers end where I haven’t quite made my ground because I’m in outdoor mode and have been admiring my shot. Lulls in between each delivery are non-existent in indoor cricket; 99% of the time the ball is live and you’re in the game no matter where you’re standing.

For my first season (January-April 2013), I was somewhat lost in the novelty of the indoor game. When I returned in October of that same year, I began to focus on how I felt the format could benefit my skills outdoors. Of course, the conclusions I reached wouldn’t be for everyone - Robert Forrest, for example, hits a high percentage of his runs in fours and sixes (the back wall).

Whether through bad luck or bad technique, I never seemed to get away with the same approach. I decided to tailor my approach to scoring two runs every ball. So, by placement and wrist-work, I determined that I could hit the side wall with ease (it’s generally the least protected), scoring one run and then picking up another by completing a run. I figured that, like my style as an outdoor player, reducing the risk of losing my wicket and playing percentages with positivity would be my winning formula. If I managed a boundary along the way, that was then just an added bonus.

The indoor ball swings considerably more and so, whilst not every bowler is of D1 standard, I was gaining that added benefit of training my eye back in an exaggerated manner. That said, there are some cracking bowlers to be found. Jay Singh of Railway Union, for example, is outstanding indoors with ball in hand. Facing his likes was another challenge altogether.

Of course, batting took up only four overs of time in a 32 over game. 16 overs spent fielding aided my reactions and instincts profoundly. As I said, the ball is constantly in play. A rebound off the back wall, a ricochet off the side wall - catching opportunities were everywhere at constantly changing angles and speeds. Coupled with the smaller playing environment, faster reactions were required. Having lost my bowling action years ago, I have worked hard to make my fielding as good as I can, and indoor cricket has been one of the best “training” methods I’ve used.

The 2014 outdoor season was particularly long for me. I decided a break from cricket was needed for the winter. But rest assured, come January, I’ll be back to indoor with great gusto. Matt Lunson and Grant White have established an excellent league (from scratch) that is not only competitive but good fun. With constant tracking of stats, there is always banter to had between individuals and teams.

Indoor FireworksClontarf skipper Eoghan Delany on what cricketers do when the winter comes

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Event and Headshot Photography

www.rocshot.com

TO BOOK TICKETS VISIT WWW.CRICKETIRELAND.IE

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Members of Phoenix Cricket Club at this year’s Annual Cricket Leinster Awards Night. For more photos check out our facebook page!

Photo by @rocshot

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A County Championship?Should cricket be organised on county lines?, asks Ger Siggins

IT’S funny how much the past informs the present in our sport. This isn’t always a bad thing however, and much of what is great about cricket can be traced back to the very dawn of the game.

Only recently CricketIreland has revived the interprovincial series which was first tried out in the 1890s, while the RSA National Cup is a close relation to the old Irish Junior Cup which was very popular in the 1950s when it was won by Co Galway and Rush among others.

It was while looking at the growth of clubs outside the capital city that I had an idea recently. By coincidence I was doing some research in back issues of the Irish Times in 1894 and came across a letter to that paper suggesting a county cricket competition in Ireland.

While cricket had been the biggest sport in the country 20 years prior to that, the land wars, the rise of the GAA and absence of a

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governing body and administrative structure had started its long decline, especially outside Dublin and the north.

“It would be a wonderful stimulus to provincial cricket”, the writer suggested. “And as county cricket is the backbone of the game in England so to a lesser extent it might become here.”

The idea had been first mooted by Sir John Kennedy, who lived at Johnstown, who was a major figure in Co Kildare cricket at the time and father of a couple of Ireland internationals.

The Irish Times suggested that the likes of Carlow, “capable of putting a very powerful side in the field” could take up against the likes of Westmeath, Longford, Queen’s County (Laois), Kildare, Dublin, Meath and Wicklow.

Nowadays there are few County clubs in existence – Cork County has been going 140 years, but Laois and Longford are the only Leinster clubs who fly their home county flag. Carlow and Wicklow have clubs who carry the name but

there are other clubs playing in those counties. Co Meath had a thriving club up to recent times who played friendly cricket out of Headfort School.

The notion of representing your county though, is a powerful one in Ireland. To say you are county player in any sport is notable and can be a strong incentive to young players to develop and improve and help promote the sport within the county. Wouldn’t a small county championship be a fantastic promotional tool for Cricket Ireland?

While any attempt to organise a county competition would have to exclude Dublin, there are enough clubs and players around the province to make for meaningful competition for at least counties to begin with.

Clubs TeamsKildare 3 6Wicklow 2 5 Meath 2 4Laois 1 4Carlow 2 3Westmeath 1 3Louth 1 2 Longford 1 2Wexford 1 2Offaly 1 1

The ‘dormitory’ countries of Kildare, Wicklow and Meath are likely to be strongest, although Laois were briefly a senior club in recent years. During the 2014 summer the highest placed clubs outside Dublin were in Division 3 (North Kildare and Laois), Division 4 (Mullingar, who were relegated), Division 5 (Greystones) and Division 6 (Knockharley, Longford and North Kildare II).

That old 1894 letter writer knew where his idea might fall down: “The difficulty is to get someone in each county where the nucleus of a team may exist to take up the idea. I was of the opinion that, so far as the province of Leinster was concerned, the recently-formed branch of the union might have been able to do some good in the matter.”

Anyone fancy selecting their local side for the first Leinster County Championship? Counties of origin will count too, so the likes of Josh Uddin can play for Kildare, Dom Joyce for Wicklow and Allan Eastwood and David Murphy for (the slightly less than Leinster) Tipperary, as well as several other youngsters who have come up to Dublin for cricket reasons. We’ll print the best selections in our next edition.

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Catch A Falling

Star

Paul Reynolds proposes a new way of starring players

ALL clubs cheat.

There, it has been said, and we can now move on.Let me explain.

Hundreds of man hours around the province each summer are taken up (some might say wasted), by the concept of “starrings”. Many will be glazing over at the mere mention of the word; others will be left confused by this odd concept which can’t even be found in a dictionary.In most parts of the world where club cricket is played, competitive action is played on one day of the week. A clubs’ 11 strongest players on that day comprise the first team; the next 11 strongest players comprise the second team and so on.Such a system means that league cricket can only be played on one day a week, leading to empty grounds (and bored players) on other days. Cricket Leinster has always got around this by asking clubs to rank its players in a rough order of their playing standard. Those that are listed in the bottom three have the option of playing on the team below (one of the three can do so in the top seven divisions, two of them below this point)Clubs can play matches on any day they want, as long as the players they select correspond to the listing they have provided to Cricket Leinster.

The system has worked pretty well for decades. Before the days of the internet, no one had any real idea who was playing cricket for whom. The league were in no position to tell clubs who they should be placing in their starrings. So the clubs volunteered that information, and pinned it to their club noticeboard, where technically anyone could have a look.That system worked pretty well – mainly because no

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one had any real way of checking whether such a list was accurate. It was always open to abuse though. If clubs added a few extra names to their list, then someone who was listed as being a 3rd team player, may be able to be shifted down to make the 4th team stronger. But this was difficult to spot, and life went on.But life has changed. Communication has been revolutionised. Whereas ten years ago, the scorecard for a match may never have seen the light of day, now it is broadcast to thousands within the match being finished. So Cricket Leinster now knows who plays in each match. But crucially it still asks clubs to come up with a list, telling Cricket Leinster who has been playing – despite the fact that this information is now known!

So the process goes something like this. Club members will spend several hours every week, coming up with a list of players who have played in the last few weeks, which always includes a few people who sort have played. There are players who were “going to play, but then couldn’t get off work”. There are players who “have been on holiday, but will definitely be playing next week”. The reasons go on. So the club spends hours coming up with a list, before the Open Competitions committee then spends more hours (with time having to be spent on each club) to find all the players in the list who shouldn’t be there – despite the fact that this information is already known!

The whole process is now completely mad. It is a game of cat and mouse, with each club trying to bend the rules as much as possible, knowing that each extra name it can sneak in will give it an edge.“But”, I hear you ask, “if all clubs are doing it, what difference does it make?” Apart from surely not being the best way to run a sporting league, this cheating/rule bending affects some clubs more than others.

Let us use some real examples from this year’s Open Competitions.Division 1 and Division 2 are Cricket Leinster’s premier competitions, and are played on the same day. They contain players who are the best 11 players in that club, or in the case of 2nd teams, the second best 11 players in that club. Starrings have no effect on the league. But the time we get to Division 3, the situation has changed. Let us assume that each club has nine players on each team, and that these nine are legitimate players who are regularly

available, and who are all of the same standard. It also has two further players on each team who it is putting on the list to try and gain an advantage.In Division 3, teams such as North Kildare, Civil Service and Laois are all first teams who can gain no advantage from manipulating the starrings. But they are up against five other 2nd teams who all gain an advantage from the starrings. That bias is approximately 10% (see table below). As this bias gets larger the more teams play in a club, the bias gets larger the further down the leagues we look.In Division 8, a team like Bagenalstown 1 has a massive disadvantage before it even takes to the field. Leinster 4 have a 15.8% advantage (which they used well by winning the league), Civil Service 2 have less of a bias, but still take to the field 10% to the good when playing Bagenalstown 1.Once we get down to the lower leagues, a club like Halverstown 1 have to be much stronger than other teams, just in order to compete.

No. of teams “above” +1 +2 +3 +4Bias 10% 13.8% 15.8% 17.8%

So what can be done? In basic terms, the majority of teams in Cricket Leinster’s Open Competitions are much weaker than they think, and have an artificially high league position. This bias that is allowed by starring holds back the development of clubs – exactly the opposite of what a governing body needs.The crux of the matter is that the current system asks clubs to provide information that Cricket Leinster already has.So why not just swap the way the exchange of information happens? Why do Cricket Leinster not just send a list of players to each club on the Wednesday morning, saying that, “these are the players that you have told us play for you, ranked by the standard that you have said they are”?How would such a list be compiled?

1. Those players who have played for the 1sts most in the last five weeks (a rolling period) are the 1sts. They are then ordered by age (oldest at the top)

2. Any who have played on the 1sts in the past five weeks (but not those already named), go into the 2nds. Any gaps are then filled by those who have played for the 2nds most (but who are not already named)

And so on.

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Perhaps each team could be automatically sorted so that the youngest players are “below the line” and would be allowed to play for the team below? Perhaps each team could have a wildcard, so that players who like to play twice every weekend could be moved “below the line” so they could play on a Saturday and Sunday.

It is a system that could be easily implemented, would promote development (both in terms of smaller clubs, and younger players), would mean that the best teams would rise up the league rankings, and would save lots of time, both in clubs and in Cricket Leinster administration.

What’s not to like?

Baig and Bradley Appointed to Top Tier

ICC Europe recently announced the aligning of its regional

Umpire Panels to the ICC Associate & Affiliate International

Panel, which sees Leinster umpires Azam Baig and Roland

Bradley in the top tier.

The best regional umpires will stand in ICC Europe events,

with the opportunity to be promoted to the ICC A&A IP and

receive tailored professional development. Kevin Gallagher

was appointed to the regional reserve panel.

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CUS Boys Helping Out

SCHOOLBOYS and girls around Dublin are getting the benefit of

the experience and talent of Rush CC first XI players Dean Brogan

and Stephen Doheny. The pair are students at CUS in Leeson

Street and as part of the school’s transition year programme

Dean and Stephen – an Ireland U15 international – will be

helping Cricket Leinster development activities throughout the

city each week.

They were recently at the Mercy Secondary School in Drimnagh

for its Active Week, spending four hours on Thursday morning

introducing the 2nd years to Quik-Cricket.

Later in the term they will be working with other schools in

Inchicore and Coolock.

Ger Siggins’s popular novels about a Dublin boarding school draw on rugby’s history as a backdrop to the hero’s adventures on and off the field.

Rugby Spirit, Rugby Warrior and Rugby Rebel bring to life men who played the game such as Brian Hanrahan, the only player killed in Lansdowne Road; first world war hero Dave Gallaher and Irish rebel Kevin Barry.

Published by O’Brien Press, Rugby Spirit and Rugby Warrior are in the shops now and make great presents for 8-12 year olds.

Rugby Rebel will be out in February

Magazine

Neutral Is The WayPaul Reynolds on the way forward for umpiring

The lower levels of cricket are pretty unique in amateur team sports. Even the lowest soccer, GAA or rugby match would have some form of referee – even if that is only a “neutral” member of the home club. For many reasons, but mainly because of the time involved, cricket does things differently. The norm (in Leinster anyway), is for players to umpire the match.

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This gives rise to all sorts of problems and quandaries. Sometimes it may only be the worry that after you have given a teammate out lbw when it was your turn to umpire, he will reciprocate when it is your turn to bat. But more often the problems run deeper, and could be seen as being more malicious.

Over the last ten years, there has been widespread concern amongst many in the Leinster cricketing community over player behaviour in matches, as well as “unfair” umpiring by players who stand as umpires in their own matches. A previous scheme, whereby teams had to select a 12th player as an umpire, was abandoned after several years, as it was felt that it was placing too much burden on teams to find 12 players, when many found it hard to find 11. A flurry of incidents in 2014, although not serious, have again left many to question as to how to improve the current situation. With many cases being reported by clubs of players wanting to give up cricket unless the situation improves, is it time for a scheme to be put in place to help solve the problem of player umpiring/behaviour in Open Comps matches that are not covered by the Leinster Cricket Umpires and Scorers Association (LCU&SA)?There are two incontrovertible factors to consider when we are coming up with a scheme to have neutral umpires for all matches.

1. That there needs to be two people to do the umpiring2. That there will be some form of cost involved

If clubs are prepared to accept these two factors, then it is easy for a scheme to be put in place whereby neutral umpires (let’s call them “club umpires”) could be supplied to all matches in the province at a minimal cost.How would this scheme work?

1. Clubs would be divided up into regional blocks. Club umpires would only travel to clubs in the same region, minimising travel time. Both umpires in a match would come from the same club, giving them opportunities to share transport.

2. Each club would be asked to provide a certain number of umpires, depending on the size of the club. The bigger the club, the more umpires it should provide

3. Clubs that already supply umpires to the LCU&SA would be able to offset these “official” umpires against the club umpires it has to supply – lessening the burden.

4. Both clubs in a match that had club umpires would be charged €20. The club that supplied the club umpires would receive a credit of €20 per umpire. Appointments would be worked out in such a way that if a club supplied its club umpires for all the matches it was supposed to, it would not be charged for having club umpires at all the matches it played.

The scheme is simple, easy to run, and would give neutral umpires for as many matches as they wished. It could be run as far down as Division 9, or 10, or whatever division clubs required.What are the drawbacks? None at all. If clubs agree that they want umpires for more matches and that the club umpires have to come from somewhere, then everyone is a winner – especially those currently playing below Division 6.

And there is an unexpected advantage. A club member could take part in this scheme, umpire a match all day, and watch as his/her club receives a €20 credit for expenses. Or the umpire could attend a short course run by the LCU&SA, receive €43 in expenses, and start on the umpiring ladder, with opportunities to progress to the very top of the game. It would make no difference to the club, as the club gets the benefits both ways.

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