Son Of Coco
Cricket Web: All-Time Legend
Dodgy tactics in local cricket!? It would never happen would it? Playing in a league from which no-one has been chosen to play for QLD/NSW, let alone Australia, since the 50's you wouldn't think enough would ride on a game of supposedly friendly Saturday cricket to warrant employing tactics some would refer to as downright rotten would you?
Before I start, I'd meant to start a thread on here tracking the results of my team and individual performances since the start of the season (it probably would have been riveting stuff too ), but I was a bit lazy and got too far behind so gave up before I started. To sum it up in a nutshell, we lost our first 5 games before finally coming up trumps last Saturday week, bowling the opposition team out for 90 and being 3/146 at the end of play - a great position from which to go for an outright the following week, and earn a valuable 12 points in the process (this would have put us mid-table before the break).
Last Saturday, however, things took a bit of a turn for the worse as far as we were concerned, when we turned up at Bilambil Sports Ground (near the QLD/NSW border) to resume our game - apparently it had been called off at 7 in the morning due to the ground being too wet! Yet, when we turned up at 12:30, an hour before play, the ground was dry and the wicket was only slightly damp at one end. What the hell was going on?
Before I continue, I should probably point out that there's a bit of history between our club and the one we were playing, we have had 5 of their players come over to us recently and I used to play for them myself about 5 years ago. Last year we played them at their home ground and after bowling first (our mistake) they scored 260 on an absolute road...when we turned up a week later their roller had apparently broken down and we got rolled for 140 and followed on on a deck that was doing a fair bit more than the week before (like having divots removed from it by the ball).
This year we had the above-mentioned debacle occur, where we turned up to play and the wicket had been deemed unfit to play on a full 5 1/2 hours before the game was due to start - apparently the captain had rung the umpire in charge of calling games due to wet weather and told him the ground wasn't fit for play and the umpire said 'well, if you don't think it's fit to play on we'll call it', without bothering to get anyone to inspect. As a result we're standing there looking at a perfectly fine wicket at 1:30pm (game starting time) and not being able to play as the umpire has been told not to turn up cause it's off. After strong words with the opposition captain there's nothing else we can do except protest to the committee itself, while the boys from the other team get to pack up their bat and ball and go home after being flogged the first week. It's a ridiculous situation...
Situations where the wicket changes from one week to the next, outfield gets longer etc etc are fairly common in our competition, and it seems the board are not willing to do anything about it...does anyone else face these problems playing in local competitions?
Before I start, I'd meant to start a thread on here tracking the results of my team and individual performances since the start of the season (it probably would have been riveting stuff too ), but I was a bit lazy and got too far behind so gave up before I started. To sum it up in a nutshell, we lost our first 5 games before finally coming up trumps last Saturday week, bowling the opposition team out for 90 and being 3/146 at the end of play - a great position from which to go for an outright the following week, and earn a valuable 12 points in the process (this would have put us mid-table before the break).
Last Saturday, however, things took a bit of a turn for the worse as far as we were concerned, when we turned up at Bilambil Sports Ground (near the QLD/NSW border) to resume our game - apparently it had been called off at 7 in the morning due to the ground being too wet! Yet, when we turned up at 12:30, an hour before play, the ground was dry and the wicket was only slightly damp at one end. What the hell was going on?
Before I continue, I should probably point out that there's a bit of history between our club and the one we were playing, we have had 5 of their players come over to us recently and I used to play for them myself about 5 years ago. Last year we played them at their home ground and after bowling first (our mistake) they scored 260 on an absolute road...when we turned up a week later their roller had apparently broken down and we got rolled for 140 and followed on on a deck that was doing a fair bit more than the week before (like having divots removed from it by the ball).
This year we had the above-mentioned debacle occur, where we turned up to play and the wicket had been deemed unfit to play on a full 5 1/2 hours before the game was due to start - apparently the captain had rung the umpire in charge of calling games due to wet weather and told him the ground wasn't fit for play and the umpire said 'well, if you don't think it's fit to play on we'll call it', without bothering to get anyone to inspect. As a result we're standing there looking at a perfectly fine wicket at 1:30pm (game starting time) and not being able to play as the umpire has been told not to turn up cause it's off. After strong words with the opposition captain there's nothing else we can do except protest to the committee itself, while the boys from the other team get to pack up their bat and ball and go home after being flogged the first week. It's a ridiculous situation...
Situations where the wicket changes from one week to the next, outfield gets longer etc etc are fairly common in our competition, and it seems the board are not willing to do anything about it...does anyone else face these problems playing in local competitions?