I play Last Man Standing cricket, a kind of derivative of T20 cricket but with max of 8 players. I also play red ball club cricket. I got into LMS this year when I said I wanted to play something in winter & a mate suggested LMS. I don’t know how many players there are in australia, I’d guess well over 10,000. LMS is also global with tournaments all year round in every cricket playing nation. Some women play, alongside the men. The structure of local LMS comps allows a lot of fluidity of players moving between teams in case a team is short of players. So there’s no club culture as such, but players happy to help a rival team get on the park every Sunday.
It could well worth be an interesting article for Gideon to look at this LMS phenomenon in a future article.
Only the tip of the ice burg of the problems surrounding Svenson. He must have something over the QC board because they continue to back him. The membership all over the state despise him but do very little because they are afraid he comes after them too.
QC is not yet at rockbottom, when will QC Board do something?
Always nod along, Gideon. Feel like we’ve been lamenting the degradation of club cricket for 30 years. Looking forward to the treatise on How To Fix It Given All The Money
Great read as we await the week after the Grand Final in NSW to start our season. We have just come out of a football season with record registration, rego for my son was $300. We live in rugby league heartland, a local Leagues club ensured rego was just $100 for juniors, and with the Sydney Swans visiting my son’s primary school- the fourth time in 6 years. Meanwhile, my club has $50,000 in the bank, the club coach is getting paid, so too a sponsorship organiser, while there is no overseas pro this season, the rego fees for grade sitting at $375. We’ll have juniors playing across the grades to make up numbers. I don’t know how people from across economic groups can afford to play, and that’s part of the character of grade cricket in Australia, the different people from across society coming together. The people you meet from all backgrounds, but time and cost may lead to a more exclusive and narrower representation in the national sport.
Is the situation really that bad at grass roots club level? Suburban and park cricket still seems to be thriving and growing, and certainly participation in women’s cricket is accelerating. Little kids start playing at age 7 or 8 or 9 these days and there are millions of them; the difficulty as you rightly point out is getting them to stay in the game by around age 16 or 17. By then they are either sick of it, got a part time job or another sport has grabbed them. I do recall the issue of double counting, but the ballooning population in the newer outer suburbs has meant cricket in the burbs, at least at junior levels, is as strong as it’s ever been.
Talented and ambitious kids used to find their way to higher honours via a Premier league club. That is the only way they got to play for the state or higher (or maybe the private school comps) – seems that is not the pathway anymore. Another bar to very good young players “filtering up” to a better competition is the money offered by suburban clubs to “coach”. Some can earn very good money plying the club circuit (plus, as a bonus, if you’re a genuine quick you can scare the daylights out of park cricketers every weekend!). Over many years club associations have tried to curb player payments but it is very difficult to police.
I am here to say that too. The huge influx of the south Asian community has transformed cricket's vitality in Melbourne. Our club was a struggling, bottom of the ladder Anglo club, fielding barely two sides with one south Asian guy ten years ago. Our club now fields 3 strong summer sides, 2 winter teams, and our club is well over 50% in terms of South Asian participation, our captains are South Asian guys. The Mid Year cricket association has grown significantly as well, cricket pitches that would fall fallow in winter are home to thousands of formal and informal games in the north and western suburbs. The existence of 24/7 indoor cricket nets in the western suburbs also speaks to that too.
Beaut Gideon ... I'm beginning to feel guilty about all the free stuff I was tapping into prior to subscribing. Loved the insight you and Pete extracted from Trent C. Smart cricket brain, has Trent.
I play Last Man Standing cricket, a kind of derivative of T20 cricket but with max of 8 players. I also play red ball club cricket. I got into LMS this year when I said I wanted to play something in winter & a mate suggested LMS. I don’t know how many players there are in australia, I’d guess well over 10,000. LMS is also global with tournaments all year round in every cricket playing nation. Some women play, alongside the men. The structure of local LMS comps allows a lot of fluidity of players moving between teams in case a team is short of players. So there’s no club culture as such, but players happy to help a rival team get on the park every Sunday.
It could well worth be an interesting article for Gideon to look at this LMS phenomenon in a future article.
Only the tip of the ice burg of the problems surrounding Svenson. He must have something over the QC board because they continue to back him. The membership all over the state despise him but do very little because they are afraid he comes after them too.
QC is not yet at rockbottom, when will QC Board do something?
Always nod along, Gideon. Feel like we’ve been lamenting the degradation of club cricket for 30 years. Looking forward to the treatise on How To Fix It Given All The Money
Great read as we await the week after the Grand Final in NSW to start our season. We have just come out of a football season with record registration, rego for my son was $300. We live in rugby league heartland, a local Leagues club ensured rego was just $100 for juniors, and with the Sydney Swans visiting my son’s primary school- the fourth time in 6 years. Meanwhile, my club has $50,000 in the bank, the club coach is getting paid, so too a sponsorship organiser, while there is no overseas pro this season, the rego fees for grade sitting at $375. We’ll have juniors playing across the grades to make up numbers. I don’t know how people from across economic groups can afford to play, and that’s part of the character of grade cricket in Australia, the different people from across society coming together. The people you meet from all backgrounds, but time and cost may lead to a more exclusive and narrower representation in the national sport.
Another thought provoking read.
"... thanks to the increasingly porous boundaries of our eternally overstuffed summers."
Classic GH.
Is the situation really that bad at grass roots club level? Suburban and park cricket still seems to be thriving and growing, and certainly participation in women’s cricket is accelerating. Little kids start playing at age 7 or 8 or 9 these days and there are millions of them; the difficulty as you rightly point out is getting them to stay in the game by around age 16 or 17. By then they are either sick of it, got a part time job or another sport has grabbed them. I do recall the issue of double counting, but the ballooning population in the newer outer suburbs has meant cricket in the burbs, at least at junior levels, is as strong as it’s ever been.
Talented and ambitious kids used to find their way to higher honours via a Premier league club. That is the only way they got to play for the state or higher (or maybe the private school comps) – seems that is not the pathway anymore. Another bar to very good young players “filtering up” to a better competition is the money offered by suburban clubs to “coach”. Some can earn very good money plying the club circuit (plus, as a bonus, if you’re a genuine quick you can scare the daylights out of park cricketers every weekend!). Over many years club associations have tried to curb player payments but it is very difficult to police.
Dunno if any of this makes sense!
I am here to say that too. The huge influx of the south Asian community has transformed cricket's vitality in Melbourne. Our club was a struggling, bottom of the ladder Anglo club, fielding barely two sides with one south Asian guy ten years ago. Our club now fields 3 strong summer sides, 2 winter teams, and our club is well over 50% in terms of South Asian participation, our captains are South Asian guys. The Mid Year cricket association has grown significantly as well, cricket pitches that would fall fallow in winter are home to thousands of formal and informal games in the north and western suburbs. The existence of 24/7 indoor cricket nets in the western suburbs also speaks to that too.
Beaut Gideon ... I'm beginning to feel guilty about all the free stuff I was tapping into prior to subscribing. Loved the insight you and Pete extracted from Trent C. Smart cricket brain, has Trent.
CJG.
No worries Chris! Trent is a great bloke too.