League retreat on plan to hit big two

THE Guernsey Cricket Association's controversial draft proposals for the Barclays Evening League have been thrown out before being discussed at this week's AGM. In December, the GCA president, Mark Latter, released details of recommendations to make the league more competitive after it had turned into a two-horse race between the eventual champions, Cobo, and Optimists.

One of the suggestions was to limit the number of island players in any one team to two with the intention of encouraging the spread of top players around the clubs to make the league more competitive.

This came under fierce criticism from all circles, especially from Cobo and Optimists who both have a number of island squad members each.

Latter claims that they were not rock-solid proposals but ideas spurred on by a comment piece last year by Guernsey Press sports editor Rob Batiste.

'They were created in response to Rob's article about how the standard of cricket had gone down in Guernsey,' said Latter.

'They were nothing more than ideas. They were ideas for clubs to say whether they were good or bad ideas.

'We got about three or four responses. They were never really intended to see the light of day.'

One proposal that will be brought forward in the meeting's open discussion on the league is the creation of separate evening and weekend league registrations.

This again is designed to encourage players to view the two as separate competitions in the hope that they will consider different teams for each, again a bid to make the evening league more competitive.

'We want to clarify the identity of the two forms of cricket,' said Latter.

Wednesday's meeting at the Cobo Bay Hotel is important also to fill a number of committee positions.

A new secretary, registrations secretary, evening league representative and weekend league representative all need to be found.

'The biggest thing is that we are short of members on the committee,' said Latter.

'If Dave Piesing and I got run over by a bus tomorrow there would be big holes to fill. People need to realise there is a lot of work to be done.'