SA needs to create a winning cricket culture

In conversation with a fellow youth cricket enthusiast a few days ago talk turned to the format of the games being played at the National Cricket Weeks. It was understood that the organizers want the boys to play all forms of the game during the week namely the Twenty 20 version, limited overs cricket and time cricket. It was felt however, that the boys would be better served by being placed under the mental pressure of playing in a knock-out format for their respective provinces.

The discussion got to this point by starting out with a reference to the SA senior cricket team being labeled as chokers when it came to any form of knock-out cricket. The only knock-out cricket played by our youngsters is the recently established Standard Bank T20 Schools Competition at u19 level.

In my opinion our cricketing superstars of the future need to be prepared for the rigours - both physical and most notably mental - of knock-out cricket. Failure of CSA to look at this side of their building for the future will result in our players possibly following in the foot-steps of our senior players who seem to falter under the pressure of playing in the knock-out stages of the various cricket World Cups.

Currently most players are chosen for the provincial sides through trials held during the year and spend anywhere from 6 to 8 weeks in preparation for the National Cricket Weeks in December where they play two time games, two T20 games and two 50 over games. As far as I know this applies to all age-groups (u13, u15, u17 and u19).

The time games are designed in such a way that each side has the supposed opportunity of batting twice in a day. This is rarely the case as there simply is not enough time to achieve this in one day and a lot of the games can result in dull draws unless adventurous captains and coaches declare early to make a fist of it.

As I see it there are some options in making changes that would give our youngsters much-needed experience at knock-out cricket.

One option - probably the easier of the two that I will briefly discuss - is to re-design the National Cricket Weeks to incorporate a knock-out component with possible semi-finals and finals to declare a winner at the end of each week. The particulars of deciding on the format are not for discussion here.

Another more adventurous and appealing option to me is to allow the National Cricket Weeks to remain as they are and add T20 and 50-over cricket as separate knock-out competitions the following year. The idea then is that the teams remain largely the same from the Cricket Weeks in December and possibly during the school holidays the following year arrange the knock-out cups.

I feel that the second option has many merits although logistics may be tough to work around. Not only will the youngsters be exposed to knock-out cricket which will give them the mental strength and tenacity that has sometimes been sorely lacking in our senior cricketers when it comes to World Cups in particular, but I think it will also aid the provincial selectors from year to year by allowing them to monitor players coming through the ranks by viewing the statistics of each tournament.

A drawback would be the logistical nightmare of organizing what would in effect be two u14, two u16 and two u18 tournaments throughout the year in addition to the National Cricket Weeks. There is a simple solution to this however: make the tournaments regional to decide on a winner from each region and these would progress to quarter -finals or semi-finals followed by a final.

Another issue would be clashes with school sports tours during the holidays, where some of these institutions would lose out on their star players in many cases, but if we are to rectify the state of the nation’s poor knock-out cricket record then perhaps schools would buy into the proposed new system?

By no means is this a blue-print for SA to rectify their perceived mental fragility in the game of cricket at the highest level, but rather something to discuss and tweak and possibly implement as we seek to strengthen our players’ psyche in facing the toughest of challenges from our international opposition.

Let’s create a winning culture within cricket by adding some knock-out cups for our youngsters at all age-groups.