End of innings for pen and paper as cricket scorers iPad up
A FAVOURITE pastime of cricketers is flicking through scorebooks in the clubhouse, deciphering the codes and symbols to paint a picture of the ebb and flow of games from years gone by.
But the art of pen-and-paper cricket scoring is at risk of dying out “within five to 10 years”, as the England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) encourages club teams to move to digital records.
Scoring on tablets and laptops is commonplace in international and county cricket, and allows live-tracking of matches, including statistics on where the ball was hit and an at-aglance look at how many balls they faced.
However, Brian Smith, the Kent Cricket League administrator, said the move would lead to traditional scorebooks dying out “within five to 10 years”.
“We are in danger of losing some well-established scorers because effectively their position is under threat,” said Mr Smith. “Try and explain a score book to a youngster with a pen and paper, it does not work. If you give them a screen with buttons to press they’re all over it.
“There’s a divided opinion between your old-school scorer who has been doing it for 20 to 30 years... you won’t get them away from using a score book. But going forward, the youth are all into using technology and they will happily use that if it’s available. All clubs are encouraged to run both simultaneously. They should have a manual score book being run along with a laptop or scoring app. Because I have been aware of at least two instances of games where there has been a power cut or something that has created a problem with the digital score.”
An ECB spokesman said they were encouraging teams to use the digital systems which were “designed for every user, from professional scorers down to people playing grassroots”.
They added: “People can do it easily and go online to keep up with live scores via the app. So if you’re a club player who’s not able to play at the weekend, or a parent and your child is playing, you can keep up to date with what they are doing if you’re not at the ground. It is designed to make the game as open and accessible as possible.”
The data is gathered online, with statistics of individual village cricketers available for all to see.
Richard V Isaacs, a club scorer and statistician, said traditional scorebooks were becoming redundant but that it would be a sad day when they were no longer used. He added: “The pen-andpaper scoring days are still sacrosanct in my eyes but more clubs and leagues are pushing further into the digital age with records being held completely online, where you risk losing them.
“The score book is vital to me. I have all of the books from yesteryear in my backroom but I can see, in years to come, this not being the case.” Kate catastrophic effect on wildlife, especially amphibians. To counteract this, British people have been asked to provide water for wildlife in their gardens.
Last year’s RSPB figures showed sightings of toads in Britain had fallen by more than 30 per cent in the past five years and frog numbers have plummeted 17 per cent. Toad numbers have decreased by nearly 70 per cent over the past 30 years.
This could be as easy as lining an old Belfast sink, filling it with water and adding appropriate plants to oxygenate it, Bradbury said. It can be dug into a flower bed or stood proudly on a patio with a makeshift ladder so frogs can hop in and out.
The Wildlife Trust and the RHS have also started a “Wild about Ponds” campaign to show you don’t have to have a large garden to help frogs. People have made ponds out of sinks, buckets and baths.
Helen Bostock, the senior horticultural adviser at the RHS, said that for a mini pond, ideal oxygenating plants include a miniature water lily, starwort ( Callitriche stagnalis) and lesser spearwort ( Ranunculus flammula).