I had been out to the Prospect Oval on Saturday morning to discover the game between Prospect and Sturt had been abandoned. This would have been a huge set back to someone like Jason Borgas who may have made a huge claim for a Redbacks spot with another 100 plus score.
I went out to inspect the wicket and found it to be under-prepared, and obviously not ready for play at 11am. However, with the sun and wind that was around, if they cut the wicket and put the roller on it for an hour or so, it could have been ready for play by 12 noon. I guess the council workers responsible for the pitch had their Christmas break up the day before and couldn't put time into it after the rains on Thursday. This is simply not good enough. Not blaming the council workers, I blame those responsible for ensuring cricket is played wherever possible.
Being nearby, I decided to drive to Ingle Farm to watch their match against Payneham in A2 ATCA. Once again, no play due to under-prepared wickets.
An idea put to me by another person is that the SACA should take over the ATCA, call it something like Cricket SA, and have greater control over cricket in the state. We would have a "super-league" of maybe 8 clubs where the very best players in the state would play, and the Redbacks team would be chosen from those players. All other clubs to play in a tiered competition similiar to the ATCA structure at present. We hadn't worked out whether the "Super-league" teams would be existing clubs or composite teams.
We also talked about the fact that Grade Cricket should begin at 1pm, with 80 overs bowled for the day. Some reasons for this were:
1 The very best older players would be able to compete at the highest level, thus strengthening the standard of teams, rather than see them disappearing to lower grades and competitions due to work and family restraints.
2 It would allow younger players expected to work Saturday mornings to still compete at the highest level
3 Selectors don't need another 10-15 overs a day to decide whether players were good enough for the State team, they could work that out in the first 80 overs. Any batsmen looking for higher honours would be batting in the top 4 spots, and the best bowlers would bowl most of the overs, also increasing the standard of play. Less quantity, more quality.
The time has come for all cricket minds in this state to pull their collectives ideas in a forum and work together for the betterment of SA Cricket. It is long over-due.
There were other good ideas discussed but I'm getting tired and cannot remember them all at this hour
Seriously there was a bit of rain but not getting a pitch ready on Saturday is just sheer laziness.
