18 eleven year old boys come out of school for an afternoon of Cricket. The session is two hours long and the weather is good. There is a reasonable grass wicket and plenty of decent equipment. All bodes well.
A nine-a-side game ensues. Fifteen overs each way, two overs per bowler. It still looks like a positive cricket experience. However, let's have a look at how it works out.
The fifteen over innings provides 90 balls. 15 of them are wides or rolling-along-the-ground no balls. These are not replayed, but two runs added instead. This reduces the innings to 75 good balls, divided between the 9 batsmen, providing an average of 8 balls faced by each player.
30 of the 75 good balls are scored from (the other 45 are dot balls). 25 of the scoring balls are singles: there are two doubles and two boundaries. Therefore, the average batsman scores from 3.5 of his 8 deliveries, for an average score of 4.7
What about the bowlers? From the two overs each, there are two wides/no-balls. Of the remaining 10 good balls, six are dots and an average of 2.8 runs are scored from the bat in each over.
It's pretty dreary stuff. Is it a good return on the time invested in terms of either skill development, or sheer enjoyment? The average player therefore bats for 8 balls, scoring approximately 3 times. He bowls 10 good balls, conceding fewer than 3 runs. His typical success for the afternoon is an innings of just under five runs, and a bowling return of 2 - 0 - 5 - 1. Is this enough to allow him to improve, or stimulate a love of the game? Or make him want to continue the game next week?
The innings of 8 balls lasts an average of 7 minutes. The two overs bowled total 5 minutes. A total of 12 minutes activity in a fraction under two hours. Approximately 90% of the time spent either waiting to bat or standing in the field waiting for a rare opportunity to retrieve the ball. The teacher carefully completes the score sheet, to record the game for posterity. Evidence of how well the time has been used.
Is this the best cricket experience that can be put before young players, to help them develop both technical competence and faith in the game as a vehicle for excitement and fun? Clearly, much could be done to make the afternoon faster moving, exciting, inclusive and delivering an experience of success to each participant. However, sessions of this type are being routinely delivered at prep schools across the country.
And senior schools are observing that only 20% of pupils want to play cricket beyond the age of 13... Coincidence or correlation?
