Booney wrote:helicopterking wrote:Junior Cricket( U/10's, 12s)
Could be done so much better.
Don't call wides, no balls, throws. Call the occasional 5 ball over.
Now, for legitimate play, have at least two parents on the side lines organizing the players. Getting the pads on the next batsman, making sure the batsman after the next is ready too.
All junior sport relies on the parents getting involved, the more the merrier and junior cricket is about THE most important to have people helping out with.
Nothing to do with parental involvement, because most clubs have it going pretty well. I'm talking about general play.
U/10, U/12 should have the pitch shortened. Most of the wides called are because kids are using everything they have got to get it down the other end. They are not strong enough to get the full length of the pitch.Get a white Velcro strip with a peg hole either end, get stumps on a metal base with hinged stumps attached, and move the stumps to the popping crease and peg the white strip as the new popping crease. Also, do what they do in T20s and bowl blocks of 5 overs at each end, so time isn't wasted changing fields. 2.5 hours could be cut to 2 hours just with these few changes.
One game I witnessed,U/10s, I watched a nephew of mine bat 4 overs and make 0*. He got 4 balls that landed on the pitch in 4 overs.He came back in later and 3 balls that hit the wicket, he scored off them all. His teams score was 113. 75 extras.

.then bowled the opposition out for 68. 55 extras. So 179 runs, 130 extras.
The other game I witnessed,U/12s my other nephew faced 5 balls, 4 landed off the pitch then got run out.The 1 that did land, he hit. He come off, looking bored and said ' I only got 1 ball I could hit'. So he played for 2.5 hours to bowl 2 overs and get 1 legitimate delivery to face. Every kids that was lucky enough to get legitimate deliveries where talking about the shots they played, and if they happened to hit a 4, you couldn't get the smile off their face.
I think cricket is falling behind massively because of lack of initiative. Why would they choose to play cricket and barely participate for 2.5hours in hot weather, when basketball, football,soccer and other sports are over in 1 hour and they are involved for a majority of this time.
From what I witnessed, you have about 1, maybe 2 kids that can actually get the ball through to the keeper with 1 bounce 4-6 balls an over. If you do have a kid that is more advanced, then he should be pushed into higher age groups, for safety reasons and cricket development.
Surely, the people who work for Cricket Australia and SACA must go watch these games. And if they think that it's a good set up, then they are blind.
Kids at these age groups should only be playing on hard wicket as turf doesn't help the situation.