Brown taking cricket inside for the winter
INDOOR GAME COULD FORM CRUCIAL PART OF GRASSROOTS SPORT
KARL Brown believes indoor winter cricket could be a crucial part of the grassroots game’s plan to navigate their way out of the current issues forced by the coronavirus pandemic.
Cricket below the professional level is now central to the former Lancashire batsman’s life.
He currently works for Cheadle Hulme School, Stockport, as their senior cricket coach, while he has also agreed to captain Liverpool Competition side Leigh – the club he lives only a lofted cover drive away from.
The 2020 summer programme for schools and leagues has been decimated.
Schools across the country are closed, meaning home-based Brown’s work is limited to Zoom contact with budding cricketers, while the ECB has suspended league cricket indefinitely following Government advice. “It’s something we’re looking into at the moment at school, and how we might have to change what the winter programme would usually look like,” said the former County Championship-winning batsman.
“But it’s all dependent on social distancing and things like that.
“We’d usually do quite a lot of oneto-one sessions from September leading up to Christmas. Then we go into group pre-season training.
“But with the kids not getting any cricket, we might have to look at the possibility of organising indoor tournaments to try and get the competitive element into their game because I think just coming back into purely nets and training would be quite difficult.
“There is the possibility of some September matches outside.
“That would be the ideal scenario. I hope we can make it happen.”
Brown previously played eight seasons with Leigh between 2009 and 2017, though has most recently been professional with Lancashire League side Accrington.
He is hoping to be able to make his Leigh return outdoors later this summer if possible, but indoors this winter would be second best.
“If we don’t play any cricket this summer, I would definitely be open to it,” he said. “Somewhere like the Bolton League do it already with their sides just before the start of the season.
“In the Liverpool Comp, it would maybe have to be more regional because there is a lot of travelling right across that competition.
“It’s not ideal, but I can definitely see it happening.”
The Liverpool Competition have not run an indoor winter competition since 2018, although they are already looking into resurrecting that plan. Further down the line, looking towards the summer of 2021, Brown is confident that schools’ programmes and league clubs can make a quick recovery and thrive once more.
“It’s obviously going to have a big impact immediately, but we can look at it positively in the future,” he said. “When this is all said and done, people will be desperate to get out there.
“If we don’t get out there and play cricket this summer, you would think everyone is going to want to play next year. Hopefully it will have a good effect on numbers participation-wise.”
We might have to look at the possibility of organising indoor tournaments Karl Brown