Time to meet the mission statement at the cricket grounds and in the electronic world
The simple message is clear, but the delivery continues to be needed to raise awareness of Canadian cricket at local, regional, national and international levels: “Welcome to the official web site of the Cricket Council of Ontario. We hope to provide all visitors with accurate, timely and complete information.”
The “hope” is too often not matched by delivery of the concept that one can “Keep up-to-date with what is happening in the CCO by visiting our web site regularly.” Not a single score from the current 2014 Canada Cup Under-17 cricket championship has overtaken the listing of the two Ontario squads and coaches on the host province’s website as this tournament approaches the closing round of matches on Friday July 4, 2014. An annual date when quite a few in the land of the free and the home of the brave get excited and while others wonder when the magical day of delivery arrives for the broader “we the people”.
A bit like Canada Day, July 1, when we did not have any displays about the game of cricket, other than two matches without any moving scoreboards, that might have enticed ribfest visitors to the 15th annual ribfest to try to bat or bowl even if only for a few seconds. July 1 is also remembered as the date in 1997 when Hong Kong was passed back from British rule to oversight by those on the mainland of China.
Not a single number has gone up on either scoreboard at the two cricket grounds to make it easy for the spectator or the passer-by to have a reasonable chance of knowing the score in any of this week’s games in this national tournament. Why, given the availability of tables under the scoreboard roof for a scorer facing each of the two grounds, the scorer or scorers for each game are not based in the designed scoring area is beyond me. The scorers tent for this event is positioned so the scorer for the west ground does not have a good view of what is happening.
If there was power supply to the scoreboard area then perhaps a large TV screen could be showing the latest score via a feed from the automated scoring gadgets that also require power to keep going throughout the day. Something that did not quite happen for one game on opening day.
As a cricket ball might break any large TV display, then use of a manual process to update the available scoreboard would assist the players in knowing the score on a “real-time” basis rather than having to run a personal scoring clock that could detract from concentrating on playing the next ball on its merits. A concentration task made harder, at times, for some players – and possibly some officials (which includes the official scorers) – due to the heat and humidity that was more palatable on Thursday, day 4 of the tournament. But if you have already been partly baked from sun, wind and a couple of brief showers it can be hard to gain a sense of balance as to how hot or cold it is. I (Eddie Norfolk) would fit the presumably politically incorrect in this day and age “paleface” category, except when the sun belts down.
Now, this message should not be taken as a blast against those who are officially hosting the event, or for the worker bees from the hosting ranks who are coordinating and doing things. Things might not be a lot different at several other grounds in the country. “Free body baking” would be less likely at places on the east or west coasts due to the impact from the oceans that are bigger than the lakes and ponds of Centennial Park, Etobicoke. But the scoreboards might move and provide updates of the games progress at some other places but it all depends.
However it should not “all depend” and the old Canadian Cricket Association guidelines need to be restored, updated and so someone within the hosting body needs to be assigned responsibility for pushing out scoring news and a report to the broad media, if only by way of a news agency such as the Canadian Press. The general public might then read, hear and sometimes see evidence on a timely basis that the 2014 Canada Cup Under-17 Cricket Championship is underway and players families and friends may be able to know how “Jean” or “John” is doing.
The “Jean” touch adds elements of official language recognition and the future potential for a female version of a national under-17 cricket championship into the picture. There are some French speaking cricketers in Canada, and at least one former Australian captain’s heritage was French. Although he might be challenged to commentate on games where the scoreboards do not move, but as with footage garnered on Monday by ATN (Asian Television Network) it can be done.
The magical aspect of Canadian cricket tournaments can be the opportunity to see alternating balls bowled in different games. At Centennial Park, for example, someone standing by the scoreboard area can flip from seeing a ball bowled on the East pitch to see the next on the West pitch.
But if someone scoring from the tent at the north-east end of the west ground has people standing in the way, or can only see the back of a batsman, there is the chance that some of the scoring detail may not be as accurate as could be achieved by sitting square of the pitch with only the players and umpires in the line of vision.
Despite fading out from perspiration, tiredness too much sun and with sunscreen and dried perspiration on certain lenses, it came as a bit of a surprise to find no lbw dismissal from one game. Perhaps it was a catch at the wicket, I thought, while trying to write a summary of a day’s play while leaking perspiration after arriving home and looking up the score on CricHQ for a particular game.
I sent a note that there might be a possible error in one dismissal, advised I might check the video footage after getting some rest. But, far from a miracle, there was a still photo of the wicketkeeper with hands set widely apart in making an appeal. Not just no sign of a ball in hand, but no sign of a ball around the feet and pads of the batsman. The next photo had high fives from five players leading the appeal and the batsman was given out.
The dismissal was, presumably, for lbw, but last time I looked the batsman had been caught, according to the scorer, who may only have been able to see the back of the wicketkeeper standing up to the wicket, and a bit of the back of the batsman. There had been an appeal for lbw in that over, one or two balls before the batsman was out, an a photo of ball at the batsman’s foot is available from the earlier ball.
Ingleton Liburd, now General Manager of Cricket Canada, saw this tournament as being the start of Canada’s bid to qualify for the next ICC World Under-19 cup. A variety of lessons can be learned from this week’s tournament, as there have been from several other Canadian cricket tournaments and “big matches” in recent years.
Those who watched last year’s CIBC National Cricket League T20 Final probably saw a close of game scorecard where Henry Osinde was shown as having bowled four overs. But the published version on the internet, published on behalf of Cricket Canada showed Osinde had bowled five overs; one more over bowled than the limit of four overs.
Some time during the last year someone made a correction to the version of the scorecard maintained by Cricket Canada on CricHQ. But it took a while. The Elite Division standings in the country’s largest league have moved from no games completed to quite a few games played by each team in the course of the last couple of weeks. There seems a bit of a problem with inter-conference games being properly reflected in the standings. Hopefully someone will sort out the computer glitch so the information is accurate on behalf of players and divisional sponsors.
Hope springs eternal, but time to improve some of the delivery off the field. There is no shortage of talent on the field, there are all kinds of infrastructure and ground improvement needs, but if those with official roles can send out daily scores and news to a range of media on a timely and accurate reliable ongoing basis it would be a major step forward for Canadian cricket. Sponsors signs might emerge around the ground – perhaps on Friday all the Ontario players sponsored kit bags could be used as advertising boards around part of the boundary, as well as the scoreboard showing signs of life. Failing that, bring out a whiteboard and mark up the basic scores.
It is time to move forward, forget some of the past but learn from what could and should have been done, and start making hope and mission statement vision and concepts into delivered product for the good of the game. “Welcome to the official web site (facebook) of [whichever league or governing body]. We hope to provide all visitors with accurate, timely and complete information.” If we fail on our mission we will resign and other people will take over, but if we are a small, building provincial or territorial body or league then we’ll just continue and do the best we can.
Personal preparations need to be made for Friday’s action, as the birdies chirp outside the house, even though it is still dark. Excessive appealing, another feature brought to the ordinary cricket field thanks to excesses in major league cricket and international cricket needs to be addressed in the context of some of the happenings in this domestic tournament, but that will have to wait for another day. Although if the hosts had welcomed an army or even a handful of journalists to this week’s event, someone else could have written about that topic.
But, as proven by some of the potentially available 1,166 still photos from the first three days, there were quite a few people who stopped to watch some of the cricket on the east ground, or wandered around the boundary edge on the way to the Ribfest. The gift horse of a ready made crowd went begging; a missed opportunity. Catches win matches. Catches could win sponsorship money.
Following the Canadian Cricket Association guidelines about preparations for a major international game or domestic tournament have taken a hit under the current and three previous Presidents of the CCA/Cricket Canada. There was TV coverage of a few games in the 2001 ICC Trophy that Canada hosted, so some revival of TV coverage in the last couple of years involved some re-starting. In 2009, apparently, nobody arranged for a person to act as local media manager when Cricket Canada, as I think it had then become known, hosted the ICC Under-19 Global Qualifier.
The hosting of an ICC Under-19 Cricket World Cup was lost through the incompetence and failure to work together by some of the elected persons over the course of a few years. But some folk who are not so great get paid stacks of money in some parts of the world, while some others work hard to scratch out an existence.
It’s time to move forward. Something that needs to happen for one set of goalposts on one of the soccer pitches at Centennial Park. The goalposts are a few centimetres behind the goal line on one of the pitches. But the goalposts of life are always on the move unless one is content to be asleep at the wheel. But the advertised target may remain the same: “Keep up-to-date with what is happening in the CCO by visiting our web site regularly.”
But some Canadian cricket sites are much more out of date…..hardly what is needed to meet the mission statement. “Welcome to the official web site of the ………. We hope to provide all visitors with accurate, timely and complete information.”
Eddie Norfolk