Cricket: Baywide competition not stumped

SEASON OPENER: Baywide club cricket got under way a week late after bad weather wiped out the opening round.PHOTO/FILE

Paul Read, chief executive of Bay of Plenty Cricket Association, replies to an opinion piece by Ben Guild, published in the Bay of PlentyTimes on Wednesday, October 15.

Ben Guild's opinion piece made a number of statements regarding the Baywide cricket competition. While I appreciate it was an opinion piece, stating the "Baywide cricket season could barely be structured more horribly", is not only ill-informed but somewhat insulting towards the clubs and premier teams who compete in these cricket competitions.

The competition formats and scheduling are largely driven by the Premier team captains and clubs at the beginning and end of each season. There are a number of considerations made by the teams and Bay of Plenty Cricket to ensure a fair and consistent competition.

Cricket starts on the first week of October, which gives 22 weeks to complete the three major competitions - the Baywide Cup, the Twenty20 competition and the Williams Cup.

Guild criticised the timing of the first match on October 4 being too early due to weather. Considering we had two first-class teams and one international team playing cricket the week prior in beautiful spring conditions, it's hardly appropriate to use a single bad weather day to say a competition is flawed. Using weather as an excuse, in any outdoor sport, as a reason to restructure a competition makes little sense. Besides that, there is no real alternative.

Northern Districts require a club champion to be named by Christmas. To do this, a full round of the Baywide Cup needs to be completed to ensure a fair result. This would not be possible by moving the season opening forward. Clubs regard the Williams Cup as the most prestigious of the three. As such, captains and clubs have preferred to always hold this competition after Christmas when the best grass wickets are available and player availability is more certain.

It was also debated as to whether the club champion should in fact be the winner of the Williams Cup. But given it's almost 12 months between the Williams Cup final and the club championship, clubs agreed it was better to use the Baywide Cup to determine the winner.

Guild also made a comment that the Twenty20 competition should be at the start of the season on artificial wickets. The Twenty20 rounds are deliberately played when the Bay of Plenty senior players are competing in the Northern Districts two-day competition. While this takes out key players for the Twenty20 competition, it creates stability in the other two competitions, which is universally more favoured by clubs. Clubs would always rather field a full strength side in the Baywide Cup or Williams Cup, than have the team's best players unavailable due to rep commitments.

Perhaps Guild is trying to simply highlight the difficulties in creating fair and equitable competition in sport, but using hyperbole does nothing more than exaggerate a very narrow perspective.

Competition draws are intended to be inherently egalitarian. Sure, they are best endeavours sometimes, with limitations on player depth, geography and resources, always drawing us away from achieving that goal, but the intention remains the same.

What do you think? Email your views to sport@bayofplentytimes.co.nz