The time cricket festival is done, but the lessons will live on

 

The St David’s Fasken Time Cricket Festival ended on Sunday and it was a run fest.

There were no fewer that 18 centuries scored in the four days, over 50 half centuries, and literally thousands of runs in total.

The conditions played a big part in that. The wickets were flat and lifeless, having seen no natural moisture since April, the outfields were dry and threadbare. So, the bowlers got no help, and any shot beating the infield went to the boundary.

The two-day “time” format must, however, get credit too. There’s so much limited overs cricket played these days that it would have been a welcome change for the quality batsmen to get themselves in and select their strokes without the pressure of having to get on with it.

The idea of giving schoolboys the opportunity to play longer format cricket comes from Dave Nosworthy, director of cricket at St David’s, and he is unwavering in his belief that real cricket lessons are learnt far more effectively in longer games.

I think there was enough evidence on show over the weekend to show that is true. Sure, the second round of games all ended in draws, which could be seen as a reflection on the captaincy. At lunch on the final day all the games were poised for sporting declarations and exciting run chases. And there were one or two teams that were prepared to take a risk, but in the end, I guess, four days of toiling under an unseasonably hot Joburg sun, in their 1^st games of the season, took its toll and no-one had the energy left to produce fireworks at the end of it.

But, as I heard said from many quarters over the four days, the event was about learning more than results and there were lessons learnt in that final session too. I came across an example of that while snapping away at one of the games. I got into a conversation with two parents who told me that when the team were complaining about the size of the target set for them and the number of overs they were given, the coach told them that it was of their own doing. If they wanted to make a game of it, he said, they should have bowled the opponents out earlier, and not dropped so many catches.

That’s a lesson you don’t learn in T20 cricket – and the schools their sons are at are the national champions in that format of cricket.

The wizened cricket professional, or the teacher equivalent of him, plays a vital role in ensuring that those lessons are learned. There were a number of those sorts of men at St David’s over the weekend. Men who have been around for years and who probably taught the bright-eyed youngsters who are coaching the teams now how to play. I saw, for example Mike Bechet at the Jeppe games, Adi Norris was there with St John’s, Jeff Levin at St David’s, Wim Jansen at St Stithians and the Noordheuwel pair, Werner Jacobs and Morne Heunis. And Nos, of course, was talking to all the players and all the coaches, all the time.

Cricket is the greatest educational game and it’s having those sorts of educators around that makes it so.