New team?

At last night's committee meeting the possibility of launching an extra team in the 2012 season was discussed.  Over the last few weeks we have had good availabilities as the number of registered players has increased.  This is obviously a very good situation and we need to make sure everyone gets a game.  So next season should we....

• Play 20 over cricket in the Colchester league midweek?
• Play weekend cricket against friendly local opponents, based on, say, half a dozen games per season?
• Same as above but with a more ambitious fixture list?
• Play weekend cricket in the leagues? (requires fielding 22 players on one day - which one, Saturday or Sunday?)
• Something else? What?
• None of the above, we are not ready

Opinions please!  Post a comment and join the debate

Comments

[John Lee]

Let's not run before we can walk! We have one weekend with plenty of availabilities, but that weekend only has one game. We need to look at how many times this season we have fielded less than 11 players or a very weak team, before we think about running another side. I am only talking about the Saturday team because I don't know the amount of people who are available on a Sunday. Some of us are also coming to the end of our cricketing days and have other commitments, something that also must be taken into account.
I am not trying to be negative, just realistic. It would be great to see the club evolve and have several different sides, but I think we need to consolodate first. We all know we may have to take a step back before we can go forward, and that is not always a bad thing.

[Les Abbie]

It's part of our plan to run another team next season & I think we should make every effort to achieve this. Entering another league is probably a step too far so I support building up a list of friendly fixtures to be played either midweek or weekend. How about maximum of 2 each month? See how it goes & expand/develop as necessary. Meanwhile, another effort needed this winter to increase poolk of players.

[Nick Oakley]

Just as a matter of interest we have been using online technology behind the scenes this season (Googledocs) to create a list of availabilities for the coming weekend's games. This is accessed by the selection committee of Joe, Dave and Les, plus myself as coordinator. On occasions we have had 17 or 18 available to play, at least at the start of the week. And in addition there may be as many as seven or eight on that very same week that are unavailable. I do realise that we must not get over-excited, but equally we are having to release people that are ready and willing to play. Ollie Turner, Cameron Scorer, Adam Page, Tony Hales, Stuart Rust (a returnee) have all been stood down / made 12th man over the last two or three weeks, so there is at least a small surplus of players that need to be kept interested. Lee Parish reported the strong possibility of a couple of new (good) players coming over to us, and Joe Smith has two new players that are keen to join. Good Bures players are also making themselves available to Earls Colne on a Saturday, when they do not have a fixture themselves ( Lewis Chambers for this weekend, for example). At present there is not a position for them.

All this being said, we had to call off a game earlier in the season because we only had eight players, and indeed there are three or four players that will be hanging up their boots relatively soon. It's a difficult call.

From my point of view I do think it might be worth doing this, but not, as John says, running before we walk. For that reason I think a modest ambition of one monthly game, against local friendly opposition might be a sensible start. We don't want the embarrassment of calling off games because we have jumped into a league environment before we are ready. And calling off a game aginst local friendly opposition, while not ideal, is not the end of the world.

Lastly, launching a new weekend team does require us to be sure of having 22 players one one given day, wheras midweek T20 cricket doesn't. But if the aim is to give the fringe / lesser players some cricket, perhaps the T20 environment is not ideal, as one would need to field a reasonably competitive team. If they are 'lambs to the slaughter' then enthusiasm will soon wane. For this reason I do not think that the midweek T20 environment is the solution. That is not to say that there may not be enthusiasm to do T20, and I do not see it as being impossible to consider BOTH options

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