Can a match without wickets really be cricket?

sir – As a newcomer to the sport, I watched my first cricket contest at Commoners yesterday between the Royal School of Needlework and the Little Puddlington Morris People, and I must say that I was surprised by how exciting and easy it was to follow (“Wickets are out as marketers put their spin on cricket”, report, April 14).

The first hitperson was outed for being in limbo because the roundel hit her cushion when it was in front of the sticks. The next hitperson was awarded four points for a field edge by the judge. After that the roundel hit the side of the hitperson’s club and was caught by the stick guardian.

The next thrower hit the middle stick right out of the ground but the judge said it was a no-roundel. Two hitpeople were outed for being scampered out before they reached the hitting fold. In the end, the contest was stopped by the judges after it began to rain when each team had made 10 scampers for four outs and so the contest was declared an evens.

I now understand why so many people regard the sport as the epitome of an English summer and I can’t wait to see my next contest.

Wynne Weston-davies

Calne, Wiltshire

sir – The England and Wales Cricket Board must be the only governing body to dislike its own sport so much that it has invented something else. Warwick Jones

Purley, Surrey

sir – In my role as chairman of the 100-year-old Club Cricket Conference, I am now meeting a second generation of parents who never had the chance to play cricket at school because they didn’t have a field to play on.

The Hundred will give these people the chance to understand and learn as never before. Without recreational cricket there is no future for the game; without the parents there are no volunteers; without volunteers there is no recreational cricket.

Robbie Book

Barnet, Hertfordshire