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[six and out]

Hi all,

A friend of mine who plays in the TVL posted this on FB yesterday.

http://m.readingchronicle.co.uk/sport/14497792.Cricket_in_Berkshire_could_be_set_for_a_major_revamp_under_new_proposals/

I played in the TVL for a long time when i was younger and find it hard to believe a league as old and well run would want to do something like this.

However, i also know that the league i now play in - the 4 counties - has been asked to also do something very similar in forming a new pyramid with the Cherwell and surrounding leagues etc...

So i have 2 questions -

1. Is this a country wide thing that the powers that be are trying to do?
2. What are everyones thoughts on it? etc...

[Mr_Orange]

This type of restructure happened in the Midlands 15-20 years ago now.

There was always the Birmingham League which had the strongest teams and was an entity all alone but they restructured into a pyramid system and now the leagues from Staffordshire, Shropshire, Warwickshire and Worcestershire feed into the Birmingham League structure. It has advantages and disadvantages and there may be more restructuring soon to try and make it stronger.
Generally I like the idea as it gives you a better chance of playing higher standards but the feeder leagues have ended up becoming weaker because the strongest teams disappear into the higher leagues when before they won their county league and that was it.

It's not quite as big a structure as what appears in that article but is similar.

[smilley792]

Recent ones are reactions to surveys by the ecb


People don't want to travel as far but leagues want to remain competitive.

Top two leagues are strong but lots of travel(which serious/pro wannabees) are happy to do.

The lower leagues where the social cricketers, non serious guys play, want to have shelter days/ and less travel. So leagues are split up into areas mainly. May give a few onesided games. But you'll be home for 8.

[RoCo Da Pixie]

I play in the TVL currently and haven't heard about this yet. Not sure if it will get much votes as from my experience the TVL is very well set with their rules etc

[uknsaunders]

TVL is a bit of a monster league in terms of travelling. A couple of years ago some of the Bucks based clubs tried to breakaway from the lower tiers and setup a regional league for 3rd XI teams. The TVL backed down and did some tweaking of the composition of each division.

Playing 100 overs is a big ask and many games don't finish until nearly 9pm, if you are playing for Marlow and having to travel to Chiswick area then you won't be back before 10pm.

[six and out]

yep can completely understand the travelling in the TVL - i remember the days of travelling to the likes of OMT.

what i don't get is that their argument is that it will encourage more participation, as there are far bigger factors than travel times etc... that are effecting participation.

why not start earlier, play less overs or speed up over rates (which is the biggest problem/cause of late finishes in our league by a distance)

[uknsaunders]

I think travel times are just part of the mix as you say. However, the TVL is probably too large. Certainly when I played for Marlow, nobody was very excited at the prospect of travelling to West London. I imagine there are a few groups within the TVL (such as the bucks based clubs) that would be very happy to play in a Bucks league, or at the very least scale down the reach of the TVL to exclude West London, deepest Berks/Hants areas. I think regionalising it keeps all the splinter groups happy for a while. From an ECB perspective, they would love a nice pretty pyramid and throw money at the top teams, wouldn't they?

[anthonyant]

As Smilley said - A lot of the restructuring is to recent player surveys and ECB restructuring.

There are proposals in to restructure the Birmingham league from 3 leagues + 3 reserve leagues to 2 leagues with the rest of the clubs moving back to their respective counties.

Personally, I believe this makes a lot of sense as it mean second teams do not have to do as much travelling while also making the county leagues much stronger

[six and out]

oh believe me i think it is a good idea in principle definitely - i mean our league currently doesn't feed into anywhere! you have to apply to get into the Cherwell and then you can't guarantee it and which division you will go into either.

however you can't please all clubs (so how is the voting/decision making going to work etc...) and the logistics are really difficult to sort out - so i just think that there is also a lot more the ECB can be doing to increase participation.

[roco]

As Smilley said - A lot of the restructuring is to recent player surveys and ECB restructuring.

There are proposals in to restructure the Birmingham league from 3 leagues + 3 reserve leagues to 2 leagues with the rest of the clubs moving back to their respective counties.

Personally, I believe this makes a lot of sense as it mean second teams do not have to do as much travelling while also making the county leagues much stronger

Brum league re shuffle is going to get messy as div 3 voted against it and div 2 are set to vote same way I think

can't see how the league will do it without upsetting a lot of clubs and egos.

Although I agree it needs to be done

[TGB1997]

The Kent League rules have changed a lot, I'm playing 2XI Premier League and this year the rules have changed massively from last year.

- it is now just win/lose, no more winning or losing draws

- 50 overs, 10 overs per bowler down from 15 overs last year

- One Day fielding restrictions/power plays

- leg side wides no matter how close it is to the stumps

- free hit for front foot no balls

I personally don't mind all the changes but I'll miss some rules as they could create different aspect for the game such as the winning/losing draw. It really makes both sides work hard and fight to the last ball to get as many points as possible, as a bowler batting at the end when the opposition are desperately trying to bowl you out to get full points was a different mental challenge. What I will say is the win/lose rule does make it easier to understand

[meats]

I play in the Chilterns League and certainly from my personal viewpoint it would be a good move for my club. For reasons unknown to me, it was before I joined, we declined an invitation to the TVL and as a result we are arguably playing a lower standard than we are capable of. The same can certainly be said of at least a handful of clubs in division 1, standard wise, and quite possibly one club in their 2nd season in the league currently smashing everything in sight in division 2.

The one good thing we have currently in the Chilterns League is that the travel time is short and it compares favourably to when I was playing in the TVL - I didn't really enjoy going from Theale to Teddington or Kew for a game of cricket! I'm sure they shared the same feelings too. From what I've heard on the grapevine apparently quite a few people are against it in the Chilterns League but I am unsure whether that is the players or the various old non-playing blokes sitting on committees at the clubs and the league.

One of the arguments I saw against this proposal from some TVL clubs was about the standard of grounds some of the bigger clubs might have to play on. Whilst I understand their concern regarding this, there are some 'big' clubs who have awful grounds in the TVL - off the top of my head Stoke Green and Kew spring to mind. This was also the argument trotted out when the Kent League decided to stop being a closed shop and expanded many years ago. The original 18 clubs, I think it was 18 anyway, were against expansion as they might have to play on some awful grounds. I'm pretty sure if you were to ask those clubs now whether they think the expansion was good for cricket in the area then they would probably think it was.

I am also questioning whether it would actually increase player participation or not. My initial reaction was no, then I thought that it might do but perhaps only at the lower XIs as the players generally playing a higher standard already will travel to play.

I stumbled across the following in the local rag earlier:

http://www.maidenhead-advertiser.co.uk/Sport/Cricket/Cricket-in-Berks-Bucks-and-Oxon-could-be-in-line-for-a-radical-shake-up-19052016.htm

I thought it was quite interesting how the local hubs could set their own rules which would certainly be good.

[ProCricketer1982]

Wepl had a system where basically you had 4 leagues and then 4 2xi leagues. 2xi leagues were pointless other than giving 2xi nice grounds.

Anyway, wepl finally realised and have trimmed down to 3 divs only and sent a load of 1xi and all 2xi teams back to their counties. Sure it's a dent in egos but overall it's better for quality as well as enabling every team to find a level eventually

Further down, you now have very local leagues which play 40 overs. Sure I don't like less than 50 overs as enforcing over rates would solve time issues.. Oh and cutting teas etc /) lots of opposition to whatever happens. Just deciding on what will cause the least people to quit I suppose

[edge]

Was amazed by the complaints in some parts about 2s teams dropping down from the wepl, surely everyone playing the standard they should and only the top teams travelling long distances makes a lot of sense in the long run. Will take a few years to sort out though by the looks of things, played a 2xi that had come down in our first game this year and they're gonna have a tough time. Definitely not complaining about some nicer grounds to play on from our point of view with more wepl 2s around us.

[Seniorplayer]

I play in the Worcester league the travel  since the restructure now involves great distances fourth team game tomorrow is an 120 mile round trip with mainly under 15s also the restructure has help kill off Sunday cricket due to the time and travel now required on Saturdays.