and it’s not too shiny. It’s funny that foreign based folk write what they like but when a white local gives his 10c worth it makes people come out swinging. My area of interest is schoolboy cricket, I’ve watched it for 20 years now and am deeply traumatized by what’s happened to our cricketing nursery.
What happened in the past was that ZC always relied on the big cricketing schools to provide the nucleus of the age group teams and then would put in other players from outlying and lesser schools to tick their box of spreading cricket. Of course a few have been selected on merit, mostly bowlers, but some really good players have usually been prejudiced as a result. The trials are always inundated with kids who can’t really play and it’s tough on them and a charade. The organizers (I use that term loosely) get ZC money for lunches, umpires etc, most of which they steal so they drag it out as long as they can. There was a period when they didn’t bother with tours either until better-off parents started contributing. There was no pathway either for school leavers unless the odd exceptional black kid came along. Now they’ve woken up to the fact that our National side needed new blood in the wings and that our franchise system can’t unearth anyone good if the same old guys play half a season year in and year out and that they were really messing it up so they’ve created pathways and opportunities at u19 level, but it is completely neglected below that. It’s too late to create a top player at u19, the ship has already sailed. I really don’t understand why that is not firmly grasped, maybe it is and they don’t give a damn?
What they’ve not realized is that the nucleus of schoolboys they’ve relied upon is now in trouble. Of course they will spin that and claim that there are now more kids from lesser schools making sides because grass roots is working, but that’s not the case. The overall standard has plummeted. The reality is that we’re now in trouble at the very core of our cricket, and it’s all happened in the last few years. Much of it has been through economic circumstances and people leaving, but there has been no meaningful dialogue between ZC and the schools to stop school cricket from imploding.
We do have two very good T20 tournaments that falsely indicate that things are ok when school cricket is actually in its death throes. The boys play perhaps 8 games a year if they’re lucky, and it’s generally against very weak opposition. Water polo has taken its toll, the kids have ridiculously heavy extra curricular schedules that gives them limited time for practice, and perhaps most IMPORTANTLY, the third term schedule is shortened by exams and the first term by athletics. Schools spend weeks practicing athletics for one internal sports day!! It’s bloody ridiculous. If they played the full second term in the good weather this would sort this major problem out.
Here’s what needs to happen- It’s imperative that they organize more games. Scheduled games against poor schools are practically meaningless. The big schools need to play each other repeatedly.
Obviously 50 over games are the real deal but we need to see more T20 festivals that the kids enjoy. Each age group should get 3-4 of these a year.
There’s a new format that has merit, and that is back to back T20’s against the same school with a cumulative total and batting line up continues where they left off in the first innings. It’s not bad because everyone usually gets a bat and it’s intense and the lesser players are involved.
National age group squads need to be selected from the previous season and need to practice and play at least 4 times a year, twice against the age group above and twice against the group below. This way the quality players get some real practice with supposedly better quality coaches. I’m skeptical about the coaching here. Standing at the top of the net chatting and occasionally dispensing pearls of wisdom is not coaching. These ridiculous money making scam trials need to stop, we all know who the better cricketers are. It would be money well spent by MCC to pay these guys a fancy salary to stay away if ZC can’t fire them for whatever reason. If a good player miraculously materializes from nowhere the respective coach should be free to bring him in for assessment by the right people, not by some fool who once coached him and has an agenda to show he’s a decent coach.
They ideally need to make Cricket a second and third term sport and rugby a first term one. This is unlikely but would be absolutely first prize.
The real good kids need coaching from proper coaches at least twice a week for us to compete internationally down the line. This requires real organization and funding and again is very unlikely. Once again there are only half a dozen batters aged between 10 and 17 that I’ve seen that can hold their own at SA provincial level, which has also deteriorated significantly. This is a dismal state of affairs. People can say what they like about this but it’s fact. We actually have a couple of youngsters with real potential and time and money needs to be invested in them. It’s a ten year process to get a youngster batting well, and requires dedication from parents, kids and good coaches. This is basically the cricketing culture which has all but disappeared. I haven’t seen a playground game of cricket for a very long time. There are practically no dedicated capable dads that can help with their kids, at best a select few send their kids to a private coach once a week, it’s not good enough. This is the reason some folk with the means elect to send their kids elsewhere. In most instances it’s an error because they often think their kids are better than they really are, unless you’re extraordinary here you don’t have a snowball’s chance in hell out there. Finally at 15-16 the good kids need to play club cricket, for me this is vital. The good ones take to it fairly comfortably and it’s one of the stepping stone we’re missing. If you can cope against half decent men and the mental aspect of that then you’re on the right path. I don’t think I’ve seen more than half a dozen kids in the last decade that have even expressed a vague interest in giving it a go, it’s disgraceful. They’d rather be drinking, socializing and messing around on social media or something else pitifully meaningless than taking the pain. I don’t think there’s a world class batsman out there that hasn’t completed the 10 year/10000 hour yardstick by the time they’re 18, but we’re hoping for miracle results from people that have done less than 10% of that- it’s never going to happen, the old days of casual hard drinking amateurs making a few runs are long gone.
Oh the Rising Stars, whilst I’m on this subject- again a good initiative, but we need to go with a top side every second year, we don’t have the players to do it annually. They don’t need to go the whole season either, that’s a waste.
Anyway more ramblings, hope someone takes something from it. Someone send it to the MCC.
