Good Evening All

Welcome to the first of a series of short monthly news updates that I hope to send throughout the 2020 season, so that playing members at the club are well informed on all things cricket.

One of my aims for my time as Head of Cricket is to increase feedback from the playing membership and strengthen the opportunities for members to participate in the running and direction of the club. To that end, if you have ideas or feedback concerning the club, please feel free to contact me either via kmckay124@btinternet.com or 07966 279 882.

Headlines for January

• Our fixtures are 99% complete with the league fixtures available to view on the league website and our Saturday matches kicking off on 25 April with a friendly against Watton-at-Stone followed by the usual inter-club match. We have increased the number of Sunday friendlies to 15 games following last year’s increased interest from members and we are just tying up the last Blackbirds fixtures. A big thanks to our fixtures secretary, Peter Lockley, for his hard work.
• As with every year, all senior players have to re-register with the club for the 2020 season. We are hoping to run two registration events; one will be a pre-season get together and social event in early April and the second will be a mop-up event running alongside the inter-club match. Watch this space for more details.
• We currently do not have a Sunday first XI skipper. If you are interested in picking up this role (or as a “job share” with another volunteer), which is crucial to help keep friendly cricket alive and to bring colts through into senior cricket, please get in touch with me.
• Winter nets are underway at Choice Cricket centre and attendance has been satisfactory thus far. For those of you who haven’t made it up there yet, the sessions are every Tuesday from 8pm to 9pm and are a good opportunity to work off the rust before the season proper kicks off.
• I will be meeting Simon Stevens, our club coach, shortly to discuss our summer training sessions and how we can ensure that these are player led, structured, and help to develop the overall standard of cricket in the club. If you have ideas about the content for these sessions, please do let me know.
• The cricket committee has met once and we are due to meet again at the end of February – in line with my objective above, I am hoping to introduce new roles to the committee in the form of a player rep and a coaches rep. If you are interested in either of these roles, please drop me a line.
• The Herts League AGM is also in February, and I will circulate any interesting news or changes to rules in my next update.

Best wishes

Keith McKay