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Yes, great thinking!

4 (11.8%)

No, bad idea

28 (82.4%)

Not sure, undecided

2 (5.9%)

Total Members Voted: 34

[Gurujames]

Our earlier starts has meant that those who work Saturday mornings can't play, those who do overtime on Saturday mornings lose out financilly. There is no perfect solution.

[WalkingWicket37]

a local club here won their divison last year and then had to travel gloucestershire and whiltshire.. unsurprisingly, many of their players simply played home games or completely sacked off the season. When asked they just said they weren't prepared to travel and as above, have the really early and late finishes due to travelling. That's probably more the issue than the length of the game.

as people have said, just start earlier so people actually have a full evening available to them

I can fully understand this. Being on the Soufff coast we're in the "Hampshire" league. Over the last couple of seasons I managed to play away games on the Isle of Wight (not miles away, just a long day due to trains & ferrys not running in sync with each other), Wiltshire, Dorset, Berkshire & Surrey.
Along with the out of the county fixtures there's a few fairly long away trips where we're lucky end ugh to stay in Hampshire.

It's not the amount of overs that puts people off, it's the 1/2pm starts to play 50/45 over games and the hundreds of miles you have to travel to play. I dunno if the league are aware of this, but fuel isn't exactly cheap...

[ProCricketer1982]

I can fully understand this. Being on the Soufff coast we're in the "Hampshire" league. Over the last couple of seasons I managed to play away games on the Isle of Wight (not miles away, just a long day due to trains & ferrys not running in sync with each other), Wiltshire, Dorset, Berkshire & Surrey.
Along with the out of the county fixtures there's a few fairly long away trips where we're lucky end ugh to stay in Hampshire.

It's not the amount of overs that puts people off, it's the 1/2pm starts to play 50/45 over games and the hundreds of miles you have to travel to play. I dunno if the league are aware of this, but fuel isn't exactly cheap...

exactly. The cost of playing is expensive now, add to that kit, fuel and if you are due to start at 1300 and the travel is 2 hours away.. teams to act all professional want to get there at least 60 mins early.. meaning leaving at 9-10am !!! utterly stupid for amateur cricket. then if you don't finish until 2000.. 60 mins in the bar.. 11pm finish.. ridiculous at the amateur level.

[Six Sixes Cricket]

May as well play T20. Except by and large T20 weekend cricket has been a failure.

I want to play as many overs as possible, why do they regard this supposed view from their surveys that games finish too late to mean they should scheduled less overs? It's simple in my mind, start earlier!

As well as reducing the overs from 45 to 40, the games started 30 mins earlier at 13:30. At one stage they also wanted to stop the teas as well.

[thecord]

9 downwards? Yeesh, that's hardly the 'lower leagues', it's half the entire league structure!

Yea the idea would be the newly formed Section C which is Div 9 down so about half the league

[thecord]

As well as reducing the overs from 45 to 40, the games started 30 mins earlier at 13:30. At one stage they also wanted to stop the teas as well.

Don't for one minute think scrapping teas is off the agenda Rob

[Six Sixes Cricket]

Don't for one minute think scrapping teas is off the agenda Rob

Madness. As anything been discussed about which divisions you can play for other teams Phil?

[Stuey]

Our 4th team have asked for overs to be reduced to 40 overs as have many sides in the Essex league outside of the big teams who put out 7 or 8 sides. The argument is 52 overs is to long and that's from the senior players. I actually think there is an argument for it, bringing start times forward isn't the answer as many players work Saturday mornings , but no rule fits all.

[ProCricketer1982]

Madness. As anything been discussed about which divisions you can play for other teams Phil?

choice between losing overs or scrapping tea then there is no contest.. Tea is gone

[edge]

40 isn't so bad compared to 45 overs higher up the leagues, but 30 is a very strange idea. Might as well play t20.

I'm also hearing that there's a suggested rule in the last month or so of the season, players can't be dropped to lower teams if they've played more than a certain no. of games in the top few divisons? Bizarre.

[ProCricketer1982]

Our 4th team have asked for overs to be reduced to 40 overs as have many sides in the Essex league outside of the big teams who put out 7 or 8 sides. The argument is 52 overs is to long and that's from the senior players. I actually think there is an argument for it, bringing start times forward isn't the answer as many players work Saturday mornings , but no rule fits all.

40 overs means less people get a game, more people get crap games (no point saying clusb will manage it because winning is all that matters) and so people leave the game. Add to that, less overs means you will only breed one type of player because there isn't the time for your different types of batsmen (or bowlers for that matter) to come into the game. how snr is snr, if you are talking about 45+ yr olds then they are probably losing fitness to manage long games rather than actually wanting the game to be shorter. just that they are getting tired and so finding it hard. a lot of them I suspect are plodder batsmen so moving to 40 overs will mean either they get discarded from sides or rarely get a decent bat (or, they'll nick the batting slots from the rest of the younger guys and so causing them to leave the game etc etc)

vicious circle

People not being allowed to play lower down the leagues once played a certain number of games is there to stop strengthening BUT it's also madness because some people might choose to step down during a season, maybe have work, maybe just want to play with mates who are lesser players... who knows. Banning them simply puts people off playing which is kind of stupid.. although, if you turn up and the oppos have a ringer in it ruins the game quicker than anything so again.. vicious circle

[smilley792]

choice between losing overs or scrapping tea then there is no contest.. Tea is gone

I'd retire if they ever scrap teas!!

[ProCricketer1982]

I'd retire if they ever scrap teas!!

Lol, exactly. Whichever they do under the pretence of raising participation will probably have an adverse effect. Given this time issue, you'd expect 2020 to be a growing area, which as jake has pointed out isn't true. So simply shortening the game won't help one bit.

As I say, 2020 in glos is dying on its backside which is amusing for me as I hate 2020 personally but as a game it's sad to see.

[Stuey]

I'm also hearing that there's a suggested rule in the last month or so of the season, players can't be dropped to lower teams if they've played more than a certain no. of games in the top few divisons? Bizarre.

This has been a rule in the Essex league for the last 10 years(9 games from memory). It stops clubs putting 1s players in the 2s etc to stop them being relegated.

@ProCricketer1982  That's not my opinion but the opionion of players in our 4th team. TBH we struggle to get players dropping below 2nd team, so 4s is generally older players and young youth. Locally this seems to be the norm.

[edge]

People not being allowed to play lower down the leagues once played a certain number of games is there to stop strengthening BUT it's also madness because some people might choose to step down during a season, maybe have work, maybe just want to play with mates who are lesser players... who knows. Banning them simply puts people off playing which is kind of stupid.. although, if you turn up and the oppos have a ringer in it ruins the game quicker than anything so again.. vicious circle

Rules against strengthening makes sense, I understand that, but used to play in a league that just had a rule that if you dropped teams you couldn't bat top six or bowl before 30 overs for a couple of games. Worked fine, just putting a rule against people moving down teams is insane. Feel sorry for anyone in their club 2s who bangs vast amounts of runs and can't be promoted up because the league says noone can be dropped.