yes, cricket once again. a rather disturbing development surrounding it in the last week or so, to be sure. maybe it has been resolved by the time this gets published. and, by resolved, look you see, i mean that Colin Graves, with no small amount of disgrace, has done the decent thing and resigned from his position as Chair of the ECB.
for some reason, and no i cannot think how he got to this point, Colin Graves elected to defend the decision to create "100 ball cricket" by saying that "younger people are not attracted to cricket any more". full details can be found here, with the BBC being used for a link as it is about as close to impartial as you can get.
clearly the job is beyond Mr Graves, then. or he simply is no good at it. i would happily invite Mr Graves to our village on cricket practice night to see dozens of kids playing and enjoying this fine game. or, if we are a bit too north for him, i would suggest he goes around the hundreds of villages, towns even, just like ours where the same happens.
yes, that is some footage above, for those of you who can play the video, of James taking a single during a game. nice batting, son.
one of the fondest memories i have of the last cricket season has become one of my fondest ever. we were playing Skelton, in what was i think their first ever competitive game at that age level. in terms of the game, they had some very good players but our team won comfortably. what Skelton won, though, was hearts. it was astonishing - no, beautiful - to see just how happy and enthusiastic they were about taking part, being involved and simply playing.
i would like to think this country is full of stories identical to the one above. should Mr Graves really not understand that there is a whole lot of passion and enthusiasm for cricket at a younger age, he should leave now. his comments made me angry, and felt like a slap in the face to all of those who give up so much time and put in considerable effort to make youth cricket happen.
indeed, another video of James. in the above he is having a bowl, keeping a nice tidy line and making the batsman have to play a shot.
perhaps Graves thinks "the kids" are not attracted to cricket because of the lack of viewing figures on the tele. well, he and the ECB did that, did they not? a decision was taken to sacrifice audience - and exposure - for money. they sold the rights to Sky, meaning cricket was stripped from its natural home of free to air TV. you cannot complain about no one watching if you make it difficult and expensive to watch, chap.
to each and every person that is involved in coaching, playing or encouraging cricket - especially at youth level - a very big thank you. also, a plea to ignore what this patently poor choice for Chair of the ECB had to say. how very sad for someone in such a position not to understand the passion for the game.
be excellent to each other!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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