Minutes of a Meeting of the British Universities Sports Association Cricket Management

Minutes of a meeting of the British Universities Sports Association Cricket Management Group held at the BUSA Office, 8 Union Street, London, SE1 1SZ on Tuesday 19 October, 14.30

The Chair welcomed members to the meeting and accorded thanks to Jim Ellis, Ex-BUSA Head of Sports Programmes, for being a good friend to BUSA Cricket during his time with the Association and wished him well in his new post. Thanks and best wishes were extended to Jo Kirk, who has now moved over to run the International Programme for BUSA.

PRESENT

Keir Hopley / Chair
Dan Feist / Co-opted / (Southampton Institute)
Guy Jackson / British Universities Men’s Team Manager / (Loughborough)
John Roycroft / Non-Student, England / (Oxford)
Chris Murphy / Non-Student, England / (Sheffield Hallam)
Keith Madeley / Co-opted / (Birmingham)
Phil Green / Co-opted / (Southampton Institute)
Mark Brian / BUSA Head of Sports Programmes
Radha Balani / BUSA Sports Programme Manager

CRI/04/01 APOLOGIES

Phil Carson / Northern Ireland / (Ulster)
John Davies / Wales / (UWIC)
Colin Grahamslaw / Scotland
Ann Woods / British Universities Team Manager (Women)

CRI/04/02 CONFIRMATION OF PREVIOUS MINUTES – 18 JULY 2003

The minutes were signed as a true and accurate account of the meeting of 18 July 2003.

CRI/04/03 MATTERS ARISING FROM THE MINUTES

There were no matters arising from the minutes of 18 July 2003.

CRI/04/04 REPORT ON THE 2004 SEASON

4.1  The committee noted the results from the 2004 season, and were particularly pleased to note the improving standard in the Women’s Indoor competition.

4.2  The committee noted the Representative results from the 2004 season. It was further noted that English Universities (North) played additional games, not documented in the appendices. These fixtures were against Cheshire, Durham 2nd XI, Yorkshire Academy and two matches against Yorkshire’s 2nd XI. Of these fixtures, the committee were informed that those against Yorkshire Academy and Yorkshire 2nd XI were played at no cost to the Association. The committee also noted that British Universities undertook a successful tour of South Africa and requested that the report produced after this event be circulated.

ACTION RB

The committee thanked Phil Green for all his work during and in the run-up to the Home Nations event.

CRI/04/05 FINANCE

5.1  The committee noted the overspend in the 2004 season and questioned where and why this occurred. The committee requested that a complete breakdown of income and expenditure for 2004 be circulated. It was noted that there was still some money outstanding and requested that this been shown in future accounts presented to the group.

ACTION RB

The committee noted that BUSA were yet to receive the £15,000 grant from the ECB for the British Universities Representative side for the 2004 season and requested that this matter be pursued, along with confirmation of the grant for the 2005 season.

ACTION MB

5.2  The committee was informed of the budgets for the forthcoming season. Members expressed concern at the continually tight budget within which Cricket works and questioned the validity of maintaining the programme as it exists, particularly at Representative level, without an increase in funding.

In light of the continued absence of a title sponsor for the Association, the committee questioned the possibility of securing sponsorship for the BUSA Cricket programme. It was noted that this was a possibility providing any potential sponsors were not at odds with current BUSA sponsors. It was suggested that the Chairman and BUSA’s Head of Finance discuss possible avenues for additional Cricket revenue.

ACTION KH

CRI/04/06 PLANNING FOR THE 2005 SEASON

At this point the committee welcomed Jo Kirk, Ex-BUSA Sports Programme Manager for Cricket and current BUSA International Programme Manager, to the meeting.

6.1  General Issues

6.1.1  Rearrangement of Weather Affected Matches

The committee noted that the beginning of the 2004 season was heavily affected by rain which led to an increased amount of office time being spent fielding calls from institutions who wished to rearrange matches on days other than those stipulated in the regulations. It was further noted that the reason for the introduction of this regulation (CRI 3.2) was to encourage institutions to get their matches played in what is an extremely short space of time. Members discussed various options for the rearrangement of weather affected matches including simply stipulating a cut off date by which all matches should be played, or not allowing weather affected matches to be rearranged. However, after a lengthy discussion over the validity of both stipulating and policing specific days on which weather affected matches must be rearranged, it was

RESOLVED

that for the 2005 season the status quo would remain and CRI 3.2 would be unchanged.

Furthermore, members felt that it would be much easier to police this in the forthcoming season due to the new technology the Association was using for the inputting of results whereby institutions only have 3 days from the original date of the fixture in which to enter a result.

The committee went on to suggest that the cut-off date for the rearrangement of matches prior to the start of the season be moved to an earlier date than in 2004. The committee

RESOLVED

that the cut-off date stipulated in CRI 3.2 be changed to 1st March 2005.

ACTION RB

6.1.2  Use of Helmets for U-18s

In line with current ECB regulations it was

RESOLVED

that the regulations be amended to reflect that all U-18s playing Cricket in BUSA competition would be obliged to wear helmets.

ACTION RB

6.1.3  ECB Bowling Directive

The committee initially discussed whether the BUSA Cricket competition should be played in line with the ECB bowling directives for U-19s and below. Members then went on to discuss whether the Association’s Cricket competitions should be played under all ECB directives. It was agreed that the Association wished to ensure that all participants took part in a safe environment and as such

RESOLVED

to play all BUSA Cricket under EBC directives, with the regulations be amended to reflect this and provide all participants with instructions on how to get complete copies of the directives.

ACTION RB

6.1.4  Promotion and Relegation

The committee looked at the proposed league structures for the 2005 season and noted that due to the fact that the 2005 PL A would be a 7 team league, PL B North had only 5 teams in it for the forthcoming season. It was agreed that all PL’s below PL A would be 6 team leagues and as such

RESOLVED

that the 5th placed team in last year’s PL B North (Durham) would not be relegated and would remain in that league for the 2005 season.

The committee went on to discuss promotion, relegation and qualification for the knockout competitions for 2005. The question of UCCE constituent teams being prevented from taking part in the Championship knockout competition should they finish in a qualification position was once again raised. Members questioned whether the credibility of the Association’s Cricket competition was being jeopardised by the fact that the best teams were not qualifying through to the Championship. The committee noted National’s view on this issue but felt that this was important issue for the group and

RESOLVED

to produce a proposal to be taken to BUSA’s National Competition Sport Committee which would allow UCCE constituent teams to qualify for the Championship knockout competition.

ACTION KH

6.2  Men’s 1st XI

It was requested that when the fixture lists were being drawn up for the UCCE teams that the BUSA matches would not be scheduled for a Saturday.

ACTION RB

6.2.1  Premier League Membership 2005 (including contract)

It was noted that further to the discussions that took place under 6.1.4 (above) the composition of the three Premier Leagues for 2005 (subject to signing the Premier League contract) would be as follows:

PREMIER LEAGUE A
BRADFORD/LEEDS UCCE
CAMBRIDGE UCCE
CARDIFF UCCE
DURHAM UCCE
EXETER
LOUGHBOROUGH UCCE
OXFORD UCCE
PREMIER LEAGUE B NORTH / PREMIER LEAGUE B SOUTH
BIRMINGHAM / BRIGHTON
DURHAM 1 / BRISTOL
LOUGHBOROUGH 1 / CARDIF 1
LEEDS 1 / ST MARY’S
NORTHUMBRIA / SOUTHAMPTON
NOTTINGHAM / UWIC 1

The committee agreed that the Premier League contract for 2004 was successfully deployed and

RESOLVED

that it be used once again for the 2005 season.

ACTION RB

6.3  Men’s Trophy

The committee was satisfied with the structure of the Men’s Trophy, save the proposal discussed in 6.4 below, and

RESOLVED

to maintain the same structure for the 2005 season.

6.4  Women’s XI

The committee noted that the Women’s competition at Premier League level was completely dominated by Loughborough UCCE, this was particularly reflected in the 2004 Championship final where they beat Cambridge UCCE by 241 runs.

The committee received a proposal to invite Loughborough Women’s UCCE into Men’s Trophy Midlands 2B for the 2005 season only. Their position in the Women’s Premier League North would be safeguarded for the 2006 season regardless of whether a Loughborough 1st XI were to take their place for the 2005 season and finish in a relegation position. In the event of this proposal going ahead, should Loughborough chose not to field a team in the Women’s competition for the 2005 season and only play in the men’s competition they would, of course, not be eligible to qualify for a place in the Women’s Championship knockout competition.

After a lengthy discussion in which various changes to this proposal were tabled, including playing a mixed Loughborough team and allowing all women to take part in the Men’s competition. It was suggested that, following consultation with the Loughborough Women’s UCCE team, and on the proviso that they would be happy to accept the invitation should the proposal be accepted by the Association, the original proposal should be taken to the National Competition Sports Committee by a member of the SMG.

ACTION JR & GJ

6.4.1  Structure of the Women’s Competition

The committee was satisfied with the structure of the Women’s competition and, save the proposal discussed in 6.4 above,

RESOLVED

to maintain the same structure for the 2005 season.

6.5  Men’s Indoor

It was noted that the dates and venues for the Indoor Championships had been confirmed and are as follows:

DATE / VENUE
27th November 2004 / Headingley
27th November 2004 / Trent Bridge
11th December 2004 / The Rosebowl
12th December 2004 / Bawtry Road
29th January 2005 / Northampton CCC
30th January 2005 / Glamorgan CCC
FINAL
12th March 2005 / Lords

6.6  Women’s Indoor

It was noted that the dates and venues for the Indoor Championships had been confirmed and are as follows:

DATE / VENUE
26th February 2005 / Lords
27th February 2005 / Headingley
FINAL
12th March 2005 / Trent Bridge

CRI/04/07 PLANNING FOR THE 2005 SEASON – REPRESENTATIVE PROGRAMME

7.1  Home Nations

The committee noted that the Chairman had spoken to John Davies regarding the possibility of the event taking place in Cardiff. Members were informed that information regarding dates, venues and costs had not yet been provided and agreed that this matter should be pursued immediately.

ACTION RB

7.2  Men’s Regional Representative

Further to the discussion that took place in 5.1 (above) the committee noted the need to exercise caution given the tight budget and, following receipt of the document outlining both income and expenditure (particularly within the representative programme), would be able to see which areas were problematic and plan accordingly.

7.3  Women’s Representative

The committee acknowledged the report sent by Ann Woods, British Universities Women’s Team Manager, and once again noted the disappointing results from the 2005 season. Team selection was cited as an issue due to the many high calibre players who were unavailable on selected match days because of other commitments. It was suggested that in order for the Association to sustain a credible Women’s representative programme, they must work with the ECB to use this team as a developmental part of the women’s game.

Members went on to suggest that one high profile fixture against an appropriate ECB side would be a feasible option for the Women’s representative programme. It was thought that not only would this ensure that the best female players would be representing British Universities, but that it would have positive financial implications for the, already tight, Cricket budget.

ACTION MB

As Ann Woods was unable to attend the meeting it was decided that she would be contacted for feedback on this matter.

ACTION KH

7.4  British Universities

The committee were shown a document that would be circulated in the near future to request applicants for the posts of British Universities Team Manager and British Universities Coach. It was noted that this action was policy driven and not as a result of the current Team Manager and Coach stepping down. It was further noted that following receipt of applications, a decision would be made by the Chairman, the BUSA Head of Sports Programmes and a member of the Cricket Management Group.

ACTION KH & MB

The group were unsure as to how this post was funded, if at all, and requested that the ECB are contacted for such information.

ACTION MB

The committee noted that the ECB have offered the British Universities side a three day match against Bangladesh. It was noted that the priority when determining a venue for such a high class fixture would be as follows:

1.  Availability of a test match ground.

2.  Availability of a County ground.

3.  Availability of Oxford or Cambridge.

Furthermore, the committee noted that the British Universities side would play a one day match against Bangladesh A on July 18th at The Parks, Oxford. Members expressed concerns over whether it would be possible to get a strong side out for this fixture given the date and the fact that many of the required players would be contracted to their County sides. It was noted that whilst this might be the case, it would be a good chance to see what the impact of contracted players would be on fixtures around this time.

The committee noted the request from the MCC academy to play a three-day match against a UCCE representative side. Members noted that this was unlikely to occur in the 2005 season and attempts should be made to ensure that the UCCE team is named ‘British Universities’ to ensure that there is no confusion.