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another contributing factor to late finishes is slow over rates. At least when official umpires are present they can impose sanctions.

11am starts, finished for 6pm, no teas etc. Time for me to hang up the spikes I think.
after working all week I enjoy relaxing or getting a couple of chores done on a Saturday morning before having to leave for the game, then having a yarn over a brew and a couple of sarnies (or chicken and chips when lucky enough to be at middle road), then after the game a shower and pint are in order and renew aquaintances with players I have played against in the past and chat cricket with those I have just played against.
If the only way you communicate with opposing players is on the field, how are you ever going to get to know them? And if you know an opponent socially then I feel the "banter" on the field is better meaning more enjoyment, more enjoyment will mean more players.
The problem currently I feel is too much Sunday cricket, if you are leaving the WAG on a Saturday morning with the promise of a day together on the Sunday she is likely to be more forgiving than if you try and tell her that you are leaving at 8:30 or 9am both days even if you can be home at 7pm

Ivan - I think we are in agreement on the Schools thing. There are a lot of good people in the schools doing a lot of good work. But there needs to be a coming together and willing to compromise for the "greater good".

I also think that if club cricket took precedence on a Saturday with 11am starts for J1 I would be much less inclined to think a reduction in overs is necessary. The number of people within the league who have commented on how great the 11am starts are the last few weeks is very high.

With regards to a later start in the season for J4 down, that was in relation to schools continuing Saturday cricket for forms 1-4. Of course I forgot to take into account the shorter duration of those games meaning they could still start later and allow for earlier finishes in that scenario.

Neale
Still believe you and MT in a UFC showdown would be good viewing but glad to see you've kissed and made up. I'm sure, like this post, you've seen through the facetious of this message (incidentally, and MT might appreciate this, one of only 2 words in our language with all 5 vowels in order - prize for the other, clue being I'm not being it in Spain!)
There are more feckin roundabouts here than in craigavon. Where is Webster when you need him. Enjoy the states, see you anon

Fossie.

Glad you made it to Costa Blanca - obviously no new roundabouts in Spain to confuse you.
See Michael and I have sorted this matter out cordially without resorting to pugilism. Anyway you know he'd kick my ass in 20 secs - I suspect that's the basis of your encouragement.
Suppose you,lol be trying to get a bit of umpiring in when away?

Catch up when you get back.

Neale

Michael.

Appreciate your response.

Neale

Neale,

If the NCU plays no part in propagating the arguments that I have described as "bullshit", then I apologise sincerely and I will do so again in my next column,

Michael

Reports of the death of NCU cricket are premature and there were cries for the cricket pathologist to be sacked from those of us who were at Carrick for the Lagan Valley Steels T20 trophy last night. When you witness an event as entertaining and as well organised as this one there are only blue skies on the horizon.

Firstly the Carrick club. Twenty years ago I played for NCU presidents XI here when they invited Sir Garry Sobers to open their new club house. Prior to that they operated from a green painted tin shed. Now look at the place and people running it! That's not death that's healthy progress.

Then Cliftonville and marvellous to see so many players from their golden era still playing the game they love alongside some promising youngsters. Age shall not weary them etc..and the sun is not going down just yet!

And lastly muckamore both loved by some and maligned by others the likes of "billy" and "Peter" on here. But tonight a young side mostly teenagers and early twenties supplemented by good coaching and a great innings from a guy who looks like he should have had a lot more Ireland caps than he got.

A most enjoyable evening for a crowd of several hundred and a match played in the true spirit of cricket. Cricket is alive and well on this evidence!

Michael and Neale

A la Harry Hill. Only one way to settle this.....FIGHT!

Great stuff - who needs a kindle for holiday reading. This debate tops anything Irvine Welsh has to offer! Keep it coming

Michael.

I agree with what you say about statistics - in fact I made that very point when mentioning the growth in league teams in the last 2 years.

My point was you left out ALL the positives and growth areas therefore your conclusions are imbalanced.

Your research has uncovered 4 Cricket Ureland articles. I did not defend cricket Ireland. My challenge was to ask you to justify the accusation of Bullsh*t peddling against local officials - ie the NCU. Your response fails to address that. Put up your evidence against me and my colleagues or withdraw that unpleasant accusation.

One of the few common themes running through the posts on the state of cricket seems to be "finished by 6pm". I think if that was addressed the number of overs etc would become less significant.
If you allow four minutes per over and half an hour for tea then simply work back the start times depending on the number of overs deemed for that league.
I personally think the overs are about right at each level. I think teas are important in that it's a chance to catch up with teammates what they have been up to during the week or a chance to think how you are going to approach the second half of the game.
So 50 over game would start at 10.50am , 40 over game at 12.10pm , a 35 over game at 12.50pm and a 30 over game at 1.30pm.
Overs reduced immediately and subsequently for every 8 minutes lost down to a minimum of 20 overs.
Or alternatively if all cricket started at say 10.45am then the 50 over game would end at 5.55pm , the 40 over game at 4.35pm , the 35 over game at 3.55pm and the 30 over game at 3.15pm.
If cricket was played within those hours I think there would be less clamour for shorter games etc. I know one of the most frequent questions asked of me was " what time will I be home at?" Even the biggest travel distances in the NCU a player or spectator in a senior team could be home by 7.30pm
Another advantage of having a uniform start time is if they wish the junior teams can get back and see the last hour or so of a senior game helping with the atmosphere but also learn by watching .
I think the early start times ( guaranteed with no hanging around because of rain ) you would get a greater participation of both youth and adults and quickly see more teams emerge and an end to "walkovers".
I speak as someone who played at senior level for twenty years and then captained in the Junior Leagues at 2nds, 3rds and 4ths for another 20 years so I have heard all the reasons from my own experiences and those of opposition captains.
The " elephant in the room" is schools cricket on a Saturday. This is driven by a team of well respected , well meaning cricket lovers but surely it's time to sit down with them and explain " you are killing the game you claim to love".
You can introduce children to cricket at school , coach them and provide them with games WITHOUT playing on a Saturday morning. There are many fine cricketers playing senior cricket today ( 25th July) who never played Saturday cricket at school. Of the 350 people playing 1sts cricket in the NCU today how many played cricket at school on a Saturday morning ? There's a stat for Michael and Neale to get a grip on . I'm sure most of the captains could quickly go down their scorecard and give you that answer.
Antrim Grammar introduced Saturday cricket in 2014 and because of shortage of teachers a few of us at Muckamore agreed to umpire. I umpired two under 13 games and just know that none of the 22 players could say they got a lot of fun from that 2 hours. In one game the second innings chasing 18 lasted 7 balls. In the one game I umpired this season there were 57 wides ( and those were only the ones that didn't bounce on the mat ) . Now if I had been doing what I needed to do ( stop, point out little things etc ) those games would have lasted for a good three hours and that would still only been papering over the cracks.
Schools are important in the development of any sport and with more cooperation between club and school I think we will produce more quality players. This cooperation could start with the dropping of Saturday school cricket and an agreed commitment from each club to reach out in terms of coaches going in to local,schools.
There's enough money paid to overseas players it should be a pre requisite that they do 3 hours a day five days a week in local schools for 8 weeks . Clubs have students or retired people or people who are self employed or on flexitime who could give up,a few hours to help,coach in schools.
Michael's stats paint a bleak picture and I'll accept that stats can be manipulated to suit the story but those of us who have been closely involved know that Michael's picture is a pretty accurate one in relation to what's happening on the ground .
It needs fixed and I for one can't see how playing shorter games or regionalising the game helps except to delay "grasping the nettle " about Saturday schools cricket. I know there will be passionate pleas about the role it had played in the past etc etc but the evidence isn't there to say it has a role to play in today's society .NCU numbers are in decline in male adult cricket. We are seeing more end more withdrawals and walkovers. We aren't producing internationals in the region. The last Ulster players to be capped McBrine, Thompson, Young - how much Saturday school cricket did they play ? The Ulster representatives in the latest under 19 World Cup qualifiers - Dennison, Mitchell, Gillespie and the two McClintocks - how much Saturday school cricket did they play ?
If the answer is what I think it is then it proves the clubs and the Unions can produce players .
If at the AGM this October it was announced that all cricket would start at 10.45am and the cut off even in 50 over games was 6pm I think by the times teams are registered by the end of November that we would see an increase in the teams playing.
We have tinkered with everything else but we haven't "grasped the nettle " on starting and finishing times. Why NOT AT LEAST TRY. and I know there are "optional by agreement " flexibility built in at present. That doesn't work all the time so set the starting times in stone, reduce the overs from 10.45am onwards and have a definitive finishing time based on 4 minutes for an over . Then players , partners, fans, umpires, scorers, media people can plan their social and family time without cricket interrupting those plans. I speak as someone who played schools cricket on a Saturday for five years and looked forward to getting picked up at the school gates to go and play another game but today's adults don't want to be getting home at 8.30pm or later so they stop playing and school kids suffer with no club cricket.

Terry,
Your last two sentences sum it up. That's exactly where we all want to be.

Neale,

Thank you for your reply.

On cherry-picking statistics, I would argue that every statistic is arbitrary in the first place, and every statistic that is employed is necessarily cherry-picked. All counter-arguments are therefore open to the same accusation.

Would the use of a word other than 'bullshit' have detracted from the substance of the article? No. Would the use of another word have been more diplomatic? Almost certainly. But has the use of the word 'bullshit' grabbed attention and provoked debate on matters about which everybody should be concerned? Yes.

Even so, here are a few explanatory citations:

‘The impressive growth of cricket in Ireland…Cricket is the fasting-growing sport in Ireland’, [http://northerncricketunion.org/database/2015/news/articles/article613.shtml]

‘The rapidly-growing popularity of cricket in Ireland is showing no signs of slowing down.' [http://www.cricketireland.ie/news/article/cricket-continues-growth-across-ireland, 9 April 2013]

‘Cricket – which is now the fastest growing sport in Ireland’, [http://www.cricketireland.ie/extra-cover/article/nothing-short-of-inspirational, 19 November 2013].

‘The Union began to receive increased funding...from the Irish public purse and from the commercial sector, confirming the growth of the sport among key stakeholders’, [http://www.cricketireland.ie/about/history]

These lines, merely a few that I found during ninety seconds of research, bear no relation to what I - and others - have been witnessing within the sport over the last few years,

Michael

the decline in cricket in england where i played league cricket for twenty years in 2013 908.000 played in 2014 it dropped to 844.000 the number of matches conceded because teams could not muster 11 players stood at 5 percent now in the birmingham league they play 55 overs aside a lot of guys who are good enough to play saturday cricket are opting to play parks cricket at twenty overs aside an initiative from the ecb is to introduce an u19 league is to be introduced to help teenagers to make the leap from youth to adult cricket the ecb was put on notice by sport england that it risked losing £27.5 million in government funding for the period 2013 to 2017 if participation levels do not increase so taking that into consideration the ncu is doing quite well considering we have no chance of ever getting funding like that if the so called good and great in english cricket cant manage put that into perspective and realise there is always someone worse off lol I am not taking any credit for this article because it was wrote by nick hoult the cricket correspondent for the telegraph and he has somehow managed to write it in such a way that he hasnt offended any unpaid officials that give up their time for free and also without profanity just remember mt if you give it you are also liable in your priveleged position to take the criticism we are not in intensive care just recuperating so the funeral has been postponed indefinitely haha. on another point its saturday the forecast is good lets all enjoy and good luck to everyone playing at whatever level because thats the whole idea of the beautiful game ps look forwards and dont dwell on the past

Lots of sensible discussion and then Mark goes and suggests we get rid of the teas! I think we can stop talk of that now!

We seem to have got very bogged down in blaming young people and alcohol for a lot of this alleged death of the local game.
I've played a large amount of games this season at second and third eleven where the majority of players have been youths. I played away at Downpatrick 2s a few weeks ago, two fairly young teams, a decent game, majority stayed for a drink afterwards (something which I miss and seems to be getting rarer these days too!) and everyone was happy because we were back home for not too far after 6, at most there's a few going out afterwards, not the entire team the way you'd expect from the suggestions you read sometimes.

I've gave Neale my views on the regional idea before, I believe it's a handy way out for the late finishes rather than sitting down and properly sorting something out with the schools and getting early starts all year. Give most of those school boys the option I'd imagine they'd all rather only be playing one game on a Saturday and one some other day of the week than trying to squeeze in well over 100 overs in one day! I also imagine there's bound to be some level of player management/welfare issue in there somewhere.

As well as start times I think it'd be worth starting the season a few weeks earlier, as it is we're starting the last week of April, 6 weeks of exams, 2 weeks on holiday, very few games over the twelfth and you're well over half way into the season and kids are saying what's the point if I haven't played before now. Start week 2 of April, get a few games in and give them something to look forward to getting back into. It'd also create a few more playing dates to prevent all the double headers complained about.