The pressure to win rather than develop basic skills is destroying sports at the junior level and placing a major hurdle in the path of progress at the senior level.
How else can we describe Foundation’s refusal to take the field in their Lime under-15 semi-final after the umpires had deemed conditions suitable for play.
Those in charge of that school team should know much better than to take such a decision which in effect challenged authority that was on the right side of the law.
We as leaders must at all times give youth the best possible examples of respecting governance whether it be in a school setting or a cricket field.
Teachers demand respect from students and when they don’t comply, students are penalised in one form or other.
The same standards must apply to games teachers, coaches and managers in respect of sporting officials once the regulations and conditions of play aren’t subverted or compromised to give any side an advantage.
There is no evidence which suggests that the standing umpires in the said semi-final between Foundation and Combermere did anything not in keeping with the laws of the game.
They made an inspection of the conditions at St Leonard’s and passed the ground fit for play.
The least Foundation should have done was take to the middle in accordance with the umpires’ ruling and lodge a protest after if they saw the need to.
If their action not to take the field was an inference that the umpires had erred in their opinion, it means that they also exercised poor judgement because in any case two wrongs don’t make a right.
Law 3 of the game governing umpiring states: “The umpires shall be the final judges of the fitness of the ground, weather and light for play.”
The players have no part in this process. Full stop.
I might add that the spirit of the game involves respect for your opponent, your own captain and team, the role of the umpires and the game’s traditional values.
As I understand it, if there was no play Foundation would have qualified for the final on the basis of a better net run per wicket ratio than Combermere so it would have been in their interest if there was no play.
Once play was possible, it meant that Foundation had to score 47 runs from three overs to reach the final.
Under normal circumstances, the average team would be pressured to reach such a target so on reflection, Foundation may have conceded it was beyond their batsmen.
No problem with that, but it would have been sportsman-like to take the field and also to give it their best shot.
In essence, the standard malicious compliance theory could have come into play, that is, we may not like the decision taken by our manager but follow instructions out of respect for office.
I believe if foundation had taken this approach, some of us would not be questioning their motives or in our assessment regarding them as sore losers.
Evenso, here it is we are splitting hairs over the outcome of an under-15 game and just recently our batsmen performed poorly at the regional tournament.
Some of the comments were stinging coming from neutral observers. There was one which said that our batsmen didn’t seem to know how to play forward.
This observation should have raised quite a few questions in a country that has such a rich tradition in batsmanship and some of the most qualified coaches in the world to boot!
These are some of the issues we should be addressing at the junior level instead of being so petty only because winning at all cost seems to be a priority.