Print

[uknsaunders]

I'm a bit old fashioned and if a club has 2 teams and doesn't have enough players it drops the 2nd XI. Even when they have lost half the 1st XI. The downside is you take a few beatings but the guys you bring up become better cricketers by playing a higher level, colts come on quicker and eventually you find a level for your 1st XI. What seems to be happening a lot in our league is teams are scrubbing the 1st XI and dropping their remaining players into the 2nd XI several divisions down. Effectively they are a 1 team club but with a strengthened 2nd XI for that division. The teams in that division get a stuffing and the club re-emerges in a higher league again.

While I can understand from a clubs perspective that throwing players into a much higher level can be pretty demoralising, isn't that part of the swings and roundabouts of a clubs fortunes. What incentive does the club have to recruit players to replace those left if they are just going to play the get out of jail card every time they struggle for a decent team? To me clubs are taking the soft option, rather than trying to work at player recruitment.

[RF]

I think you need to raise this matter with your league.

It's not allowed in our League, if you have 2 teams and you want to drop one out it's the 2nd XI that have to go first.

It's a good system and stops teams taking the easy way out when they find life a bit tough in the higher division.

In our local football leagues it is very common for teams to start in division 7, win 10 nil every week and theink they're a good team. They do it again in the lower leagues until they get to Division 1 or 2 then pack up when they can't have easy victories every week.  They will then form again under a different name and repeat the  process.  Thankfully this doesn't happen in our cricket.
 

 

[Manormanic]

I'm a bit old fashioned and if a club has 2 teams and doesn't have enough players it drops the 2nd XI. Even when they have lost half the 1st XI. The downside is you take a few beatings but the guys you bring up become better cricketers by playing a higher level, colts come on quicker and eventually you find a level for your 1st XI. What seems to be happening a lot in our league is teams are scrubbing the 1st XI and dropping their remaining players into the 2nd XI several divisions down. Effectively they are a 1 team club but with a strengthened 2nd XI for that division. The teams in that division get a stuffing and the club re-emerges in a higher league again.

While I can understand from a clubs perspective that throwing players into a much higher level can be pretty demoralising, isn't that part of the swings and roundabouts of a clubs fortunes. What incentive does the club have to recruit players to replace those left if they are just going to play the get out of jail card every time they struggle for a decent team? To me clubs are taking the soft option, rather than trying to work at player recruitment.

Difficult, isn't it?  Farnham Royal did this last season, dropping theit first XI from the HCPL and renaming their TVL4 2s as their firsts.  They won the division fairly easily in the end but, in truth, D3 is about their level and it would be harsh on their youngsters to spend four seasons getting pulverised to sink that far...

[ProCricketer1982]

RF has stated a common theme, create a new club, thrash everyone, move up league after league until you are a mid table side..then fold.. Start again. Why?? Because people like winning, like scoring goals etc. sad but true, just look onus forum, there are a lot of people who put winning and enjoyment in the same place. Rather than enjoying the game for what it is, win, lose or draw.

tbh nick, if a club is struggling that much (at that point they probably don't have youth teams and won't attract them if they lose (parents equate first team level with quality of youth set up) and will struggle to attract players anyway if hey lose each week).. So I'd say it is probably a better idea for them to keep the 2's, win games, get the fun/smiles back a the club and rebuild.. No one likes losing each week, especially if they are getting hammered. It's harder to stop the rot if you lose all the time and drop the leagues in free fall

[uknsaunders]

RF has stated a common theme, create a new club, thrash everyone, move up league after league until you are a mid table side..then fold.. Start again. Why?? Because people like winning, like scoring goals etc. sad but true, just look onus forum, there are a lot of people who put winning and enjoyment in the same place. Rather than enjoying the game for what it is, win, lose or draw.

tbh nick, if a club is struggling that much (at that point they probably don't have youth teams and won't attract them if they lose (parents equate first team level with quality of youth set up) and will struggle to attract players anyway if hey lose each week).. So I'd say it is probably a better idea for them to keep the 2's, win games, get the fun/smiles back a the club and rebuild.. No one likes losing each week, especially if they are getting hammered. It's harder to stop the rot if you lose all the time and drop the leagues in free fall

It's an odd one. I played for Yorkshire Post/Headingley and we went through this process, thanks to the Wetherby League's idiotic reasoning to make us start from the bottom. We went unbeaten for 3 years and set all kinds of records, however it was boring. 3 weeks in a row we were in the pub by 4pm, all we wanted to do was play cricket and be challenged. Now Headingley have a 1s,2s,3s all in decent competitive divisions and the achievement in winning is greater.

Winning is nothing unless you earn it.

Just touching on RF's re-forming theme. This does happen as part of the demotion process. If you scrub your 1st XI, half your players drop to the 2s. You win that lower division almost by default. You highlight the "Division X Champions" and this in turn encourages players to join, some to play in the higher league and as you say, we all like to play for winners. This in turn recreates the 2nd XI and the club continues to march up the leagues. Sounds great doesn't it? However, players join the club from other clubs thereby weakening the other clubs lower down, who have struggled on for years at 1st/2nd XI level without complaining. It doesn't always happen like that. Some clubs just wind down, the good players stick with it for a season and when they don't go back up they move on.

Our league don't care about the impact. No common sense assessment of the playing strength has taken place ie. they have 6 first teamers left, therefore they should play in Div 2, not Div4 were their 2nd XI is. They won't change the fixtures at this stage, even though no games have been played. I imagine it's not as easy as moving one team up in the top couple of divisions and slotting in one further down. Re-arranging fixtures have a funny knack of impacting other clubs in weird and wonderful ways.

[ProCricketer1982]

It's an odd one. I played for Yorkshire Post/Headingley and we went through this process, thanks to the Wetherby League's idiotic reasoning to make us start from the bottom. We went unbeaten for 3 years and set all kinds of records, however it was boring. 3 weeks in a row we were in the pub by 4pm, all we wanted to do was play cricket and be challenged. Now Headingley have a 1s,2s,3s all in decent competitive divisions and the achievement in winning is greater.

Winning is nothing unless you earn it.

Just touching on RF's re-forming theme. This does happen as part of the demotion process. If you scrub your 1st XI, half your players drop to the 2s. You win that lower division almost by default. You highlight the "Division X Champions" and this in turn encourages players to join, some to play in the higher league and as you say, we all like to play for winners. This in turn recreates the 2nd XI and the club continues to march up the leagues. Sounds great doesn't it? However, players join the club from other clubs thereby weakening the other clubs lower down, who have struggled on for years at 1st/2nd XI level without complaining. It doesn't always happen like that. Some clubs just wind down, the good players stick with it for a season and when they don't go back up they move on.

Our league don't care about the impact. No common sense assessment of the playing strength has taken place ie. they have 6 first teamers left, therefore they should play in Div 2, not Div4 were their 2nd XI is. They won't change the fixtures at this stage, even though no games have been played. I imagine it's not as easy as moving one team up in the top couple of divisions and slotting in one further down. Re-arranging fixtures have a funny knack of impacting other clubs in weird and wonderful ways.

I agree about winning only feels good if it's a hard closely fought game but many many people don't care. Just look at the number of overseas who smash big runs or take millions of wickets? Look a the clubs paying 'star' players who score run after run and basically carry a team? That's just the same issue essentially. At the end of the day, If you asked totally honestly I bet more would take scoring 50 each week but a few diva down (if we assumed travel/wicket/umpire/tea quality stayed the same) over scoring 10-20 most weeks with the odd good score. Why? Because they'd be winning, they'd be enjoying the batting/bowling etc. some people are purely attracted to a team just so they can go 'I play x level', some aren't that interested even though they are good enough etc etc

[thecord]

Agree with @RF on this one Nick, our league wouldn't allow this and the club's lowest placed team would have to be the one to drop out. I can't see why a league would allow it without special circumstances

[Northern monkey]

I think the way cricket participation is going,,this is gonna happen more and more

[ProCricketer1982]

I think the way cricket participation is going,,this is gonna happen more and more

Sadly I agree. I can't see participation rising tbh, in cricket but also the various adult sports.

[Seniorplayer]

This is what I feel is wrong with the league that I play in we have a division that was set up for clubs with just one team all the teams  in the division were around the same strength which made the division competitive.
But for season 2015 there are only 2 teams in the division with one team and i predict it  to be a complete mismatch of sides on certain match days as 2 clubs who have retained most of there 1st team  have been allowed to drop 4 divisions 2 more clubs have had there third teams promoted into the division which is made up of 3 other third teams and I fourth team.
You can now more or less predict who is going to finish where at the end of August but more concerning is that most of the thirds and fourths have young players I hope I am wrong but I can see them getting hammered by certain teams.

[Tailendfielder]

This is what I feel is wrong with the league that I play in we have a division that was set up for clubs with just one team all the teams  in the division were around the same strength which made the division competitive.
But for season 2015 there are only 2 teams in the division with one team and i predict it  to be a complete mismatch of sides on certain match days as 2 clubs who have retained most of there 1st team  have been allowed to drop 4 divisions 2 more clubs have had there third teams promoted into the division which is made up of 3 other third teams and I fourth team.
You can now more or less predict who is going to finish where at the end of August but more concerning is that most of the thirds and fourths have young players I hope I am wrong but I can see them getting hammered by certain teams.

What league is this?

[WalkingWicket37]

I think there's a bit of "My genitals are bigger than yours" about this too.
People love saying they play in a 1st XI, but they want to win too. If they drop their top side they can still tell everyone they're a 1st teamer and win matches, which the may not've done at the higher level.

We had a classic example of this a couple of years ago. A player (who was a regular in our 3rd XI) left us to go and play 1st team cricket for someone else.
The club he joined had a 1st XI in a lower league than our 3s, but his ego got a massage when he told everyone "I'm a 1st team regular".

[arsenal123]

Absolutely.  We've had a couple of people refuse to play in our 2s on the basis that they're ones cricketer's yet barely averaged 10 in the seconds...!

[ProCricketer1982]

Absolutely.  We've had a couple of people refuse to play in our 2s on the basis that they're ones cricketer's yet barely averaged 10 in the seconds...!

I agree that it's an ego thing BUT, clubs and those in first teams don't help this out with the way some act. We played a club in a pre season friendly, not one of their players did anything facility related, left it for some old guy who only did it because they'd just left it.. classic first teamer mentality 'I'm too good to do x or y'

Again though, it depends on how clubs/leagues treat the different teams. Some clubs only care about 1's, everything is dedicated to those playing 1's and so if you are not int hat team, it can feel like you are there purely to subsidise that team. so why not leave and join someone elses 1's and be in that main team? shouldn't happen but makes sense really

[SLC]

Our 1s and 2s are only 2 divs apart, both fairly low down.

But lots of the older guys, who are still good enough for 1s almost flat out refuse to move up when we're short. It's not as if they'd be batting lower than in the 2nds either.