The summer club cricket got innovative

HUW TURBERVILL: A shortened season meant teams and leagues had to be clever to make the most of the campaign. Varying rules and formats came to the fore to ensure everyone was catered for

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So did they organise things for you, or leave you to it?

Your cricket league, I mean.

I play in Surrey. The AJ Fordham Championship waited and waited as we all did to receive the green light from the government. 

Then they took a leaf out of Monty Python’s book when it came to tailoring what was left of the season, and said: “And now for something completely different.”

They filed away their normal divisions and set up a more local league – “a local league for local people,” as the League of Gentlemen might say.

You can read about similar arrangements involving Yorkshire and Nottinghamshire in the October issue of The Cricketer magazine out now; other counties – Kent and The Two Counties League of Suffolk/North Essex for example – did not organise a new tournament, but left clubs to make their own arrangements.

“Some leagues just played their second half of the season’s fixtures as normal, but we changed the format,” AJ Fordham Surrey Championship chairman Peter Murphy told The Cricketer.

Our Covid summer has screamed a reminder about the importance of the volunteer

“We threw everything up in the air and completely reorganised. We only had seven weeks rather than nine as we wanted to give clubs a bit longer to get things in place. We also decided on shorter games (40 overs, not 45, or timed) because of the lack of access to pavilions, and we allowed clubs to save on travel with a more local feel. We also unified with our feeder league, the Fullers League.

“Thus the ‘Challenge Cup’ came about. We had groups of eight for firsts, seconds, thirds, and fourths. We were not sure that we were going to do this for the fourths, but we bit the bullet, and most clubs seemed grateful that we had. 

“It seemed to go well – the feedback from clubs has been largely complimentary. About 100 clubs played nearly 1,000 matches. Most players seemed grateful to get any cricket at all, and credit must go to the people who organised the fixtures – they did a great job at short notice.

“Yes, there were some players who didn’t want to play without promotion and relegation, but actually availability increased in some areas. People didn’t have anything else to do, and holidays were cancelled. There was a lot of vibrancy at clubs: bar-takings were good at my club, Woking!”

I can testify from my own experience at Beddington CC that the groups were organised not just to be local but with ability in mind.

^{How will club cricket look in 2021?}

If they had been strictly regionalised we may have played Addiscombe, Cheam, Merstham, Purley, and Wallington, and not gone as far as Barnes (to play Bank of England) and Dulwich. 

Nevertheless, the new arrangements worked out reasonably well.

The midweek T20 Surrey Slam, the Sunday Trust League for mainly under-25 players (with three elders per side), and friendlies on the Sabbath ensured that there were plenty of fixtures for those who wanted them.

So what will happen next year? Who knows!

“We are hoping for normality next year, but already one has to fear that some rules and regulations will still be in place, and we might need to mix it up again. We fear a challenging year lies ahead,” said Murphy. 

“Perhaps we will play half a season as we did this year, and wait and see if there is a vaccine by July. We could then play the other half with promotion and relegation at stake, but we need to be agile.”

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