Will Bashley (Rydal) host any cricket at the award winning BCG this summer ?
Covid-19 could lead to cricket clubs folding, a crippling shortage of umpires and permanent reductions in the number of grass-roots cricketers, a leading administrator in club cricket in England and Wales has warned.
“There's a huge amount of uncertainty at the moment within club cricket,” said Simon Prodger, the managing director of the National Cricket Conference, who work with the ECB to support club cricket, writes Tim Wigmore in the Daily Telegraph.
While Prodger said that “no one is giving up on the season yet”, there is real concern that there will be no club cricket at all this summer.
“If social distancing is not relaxed by the government, it's very difficult to see how cricket realistically can be played in any cogent fashion.
Several clubs contacted by Telegraph Sport said that they were projecting an overall loss of £25,000 due to Covid-19, as the projected loss of revenues far outstrips reductions in outgoings. In some cases, this figure could be even higher if members ask for refunds for membership fees they have already paid.
Mergers
The pandemic has come at a time when many clubs are already suffering from declining participation numbers.
“Participation has been struggling over the last few years, and getting core cricketers who play repeatedly week in, week out is becoming a challenge,” Prodger said. “I could see a situation where mergers might be a sensible thing to consider.”
But he warned that such measures would lead to players being lost to the game. “Whenever a club merges or folds, elements of their playing membership give up the game – they don’t move to another club, or they don’t try and find alternative cricket.”
One immediate challenge for the grass-roots game when it can return will be umpires. Figures from the Association of Cricket Officials show that 11 per cent of umpires are over-70, with the proportion thought to be considerably higher at lower levels of the club game.
“Umpires would be a major issue because so many umpires are of a certain age and they probably will feel that they don't want to expose themselves to any potential danger,” said Prodger. “One of the great challenges for league cricket, if we are in a position to play any cricket this season at all, is that almost inevitably there's going to be a shortage of officials and a shortage of umpires.”
The National Cricket Conference have already discussed how Covid-19 will impact umpires, and Prodger fears that a shortage of officials could make it harder for many matches [lower down the pyramid] to involve two neutral umpires.
Umpires
“What might we have to do if we don’t have two neutral umpires at every level ? That could be to have one official umpire standing at both ends supported by players at square leg.”
But for now such concerns are secondary to fears over no club cricket being possible this season. Even after lockdown measures are relaxed, and club cricket is allowed, it will take around three weeks before league seasons can begin, due to work that will need to be done to prepare grounds.
“An awful lot of outfields are not being cut currently,” Prodger said. “We are also aware of clubs that are not able to access their grounds at all because the gates are locked and the local authority controls the parks that they're in. And so they've not they've not been able to do any work for six weeks or seven weeks now. So I think there's a rule of thumb, to get any organised league cricket, you probably need a minimum of three weeks lead-in time.”
The best-case scenario, Prodger said, is for preseason to start at the beginning of July, with league or cup competitions starting towards the end of the month. Even if this happened, leagues may well choose not to apply promotion and relegation.
Government grants
The pandemic will also accelerate wider shifts in the grassroots game that are already underway, notably in the growth of shorter formats of the sport. “I could see that this might adjust thinking about formats,” Prodger said. “One of the things that is being considered within the reintroduction of cricket for this year is playing shorter formats of the game so players have less contact with each other."
Prodger said that, while huge difficulties for the recreational game remain, support from both the ECB and the government has helped. Hundreds of clubs are believed to have applied successfully for small business grants from the government, which are worth £10,000.
“The expectation is that a minimum of £10 million is going to come back into cricket as a consequence of that small business grant,” Prodger said.
“That's been very significant and will certainly I think go some way to helping clubs manage their way through the season.”
Cockermouth Cricket Club, Ben Stokes’s old club, have been running highly successful quiz nights over Youtube, and Prodger said that many clubs would need to be creative to remain viable. “There’s been an awful lot of creativity demonstrated by cricket clubs themselves, having virtual quiz nights, generating money for their own clubs.
“There’s been an awful lot of worth and self-management using social media. It’s really good to see how highly motivated clubs are in trying to sustain themselves.”
Article reproduced from the Daily Telegraph, 5 May 2020.
“There's a huge amount of uncertainty at the moment within club cricket,” said Simon Prodger, the managing director of the National Cricket Conference, who work with the ECB to support club cricket, writes Tim Wigmore in the Daily Telegraph.
While Prodger said that “no one is giving up on the season yet”, there is real concern that there will be no club cricket at all this summer.
“If social distancing is not relaxed by the government, it's very difficult to see how cricket realistically can be played in any cogent fashion.
Several clubs contacted by Telegraph Sport said that they were projecting an overall loss of £25,000 due to Covid-19, as the projected loss of revenues far outstrips reductions in outgoings. In some cases, this figure could be even higher if members ask for refunds for membership fees they have already paid.
Mergers
The pandemic has come at a time when many clubs are already suffering from declining participation numbers.
“Participation has been struggling over the last few years, and getting core cricketers who play repeatedly week in, week out is becoming a challenge,” Prodger said. “I could see a situation where mergers might be a sensible thing to consider.”
But he warned that such measures would lead to players being lost to the game. “Whenever a club merges or folds, elements of their playing membership give up the game – they don’t move to another club, or they don’t try and find alternative cricket.”
One immediate challenge for the grass-roots game when it can return will be umpires. Figures from the Association of Cricket Officials show that 11 per cent of umpires are over-70, with the proportion thought to be considerably higher at lower levels of the club game.
“Umpires would be a major issue because so many umpires are of a certain age and they probably will feel that they don't want to expose themselves to any potential danger,” said Prodger. “One of the great challenges for league cricket, if we are in a position to play any cricket this season at all, is that almost inevitably there's going to be a shortage of officials and a shortage of umpires.”
The National Cricket Conference have already discussed how Covid-19 will impact umpires, and Prodger fears that a shortage of officials could make it harder for many matches [lower down the pyramid] to involve two neutral umpires.
Umpires
“What might we have to do if we don’t have two neutral umpires at every level ? That could be to have one official umpire standing at both ends supported by players at square leg.”
But for now such concerns are secondary to fears over no club cricket being possible this season. Even after lockdown measures are relaxed, and club cricket is allowed, it will take around three weeks before league seasons can begin, due to work that will need to be done to prepare grounds.
“An awful lot of outfields are not being cut currently,” Prodger said. “We are also aware of clubs that are not able to access their grounds at all because the gates are locked and the local authority controls the parks that they're in. And so they've not they've not been able to do any work for six weeks or seven weeks now. So I think there's a rule of thumb, to get any organised league cricket, you probably need a minimum of three weeks lead-in time.”
The best-case scenario, Prodger said, is for preseason to start at the beginning of July, with league or cup competitions starting towards the end of the month. Even if this happened, leagues may well choose not to apply promotion and relegation.
Government grants
The pandemic will also accelerate wider shifts in the grassroots game that are already underway, notably in the growth of shorter formats of the sport. “I could see that this might adjust thinking about formats,” Prodger said. “One of the things that is being considered within the reintroduction of cricket for this year is playing shorter formats of the game so players have less contact with each other."
Prodger said that, while huge difficulties for the recreational game remain, support from both the ECB and the government has helped. Hundreds of clubs are believed to have applied successfully for small business grants from the government, which are worth £10,000.
“The expectation is that a minimum of £10 million is going to come back into cricket as a consequence of that small business grant,” Prodger said.
“That's been very significant and will certainly I think go some way to helping clubs manage their way through the season.”
Cockermouth Cricket Club, Ben Stokes’s old club, have been running highly successful quiz nights over Youtube, and Prodger said that many clubs would need to be creative to remain viable. “There’s been an awful lot of creativity demonstrated by cricket clubs themselves, having virtual quiz nights, generating money for their own clubs.
“There’s been an awful lot of worth and self-management using social media. It’s really good to see how highly motivated clubs are in trying to sustain themselves.”
Article reproduced from the Daily Telegraph, 5 May 2020.
Ryde's Hardings Shute ground on the Isle of Wight
