Scoring high results behind the scenes

With all the rain that has engulfed the country during the last couple of weeks, it was remarkable that we managed to play almost a full game on Saturday. This was only down to the hard work of our ‘ground staff’, as they are most commonly referred, but in reality, they are just volunteers who kindly give up their time to ensure we get to play some cricket.

Cricket clubs are wholly reliant on volunteers to operate. Whether it be the secretary who co-ordinates the membership, the Welfare Officer who ensures the Junior Section runs efficiently, or the many people who kindly work on the ground during the week, all of these people give up their own time for the fulfilment of others. It is this selflessness that can easily be forgotten by the players who turn up on the Saturday and expect everything to be in place.

One of the most important aspects of your game on a Saturday is the scorer. I played for two seasons recently at Premier League level where our side failed to have a regular scorer. Not only was it embarrassing, it was also less than helpful when trying to organise your batting order and your scoring rota at the same time. Kimberley are blessed with a fantastic scorer in Rob Nayler. His dedication to the job goes beyond the cause, and he is always quick to assist a bowler keen to spy his stats or a batsman looking to brag about his strike rate (JT?). Rob is particularly excited this season to be able to use a computer based system which is able amongst other things, to produce wagon wheels for both batsmen and bowlers. Despite Jimmy’s disappointment that these were not edible, this feature will no doubt prove extremely useful in analysing and improving individual player’s performances, as well as providing useful information on opponents. I really hope we can harness this facility well as the season progresses.

With two matches to look forward to this weekend, I am hoping the forecast is correct and we get some dry weather, which should hopefully ease the burden on our ‘ground staff’ to again work miracles. However, when you do arrive for your game, just spare a thought for the people that make it happen each week, without them, league cricket just simply wouldn’t function.

STOP PRESS

If you have a view on anything I write, why not comment with your own thoughts? Or just a topic which you think might be of interest…