How not to start a cricket league

 

Just like Marmite (Vegemite to those antipodeans) Indoor Cricket never seems to have any in between there are people who would rather have some time off and maybe net when it comes to January or there are those (myself included) who absolutely love it.

I have tried to seek out indoor cricket wherever I have lived in the country, gracing sports halls of Tipton, Hastings, Beckenham, Redhill and Sheffield. There is also the bitter debate about what the format should be, in England we play a 6 a side version which is designed for a traditional sports hall, but when you say indoor cricket to cricketers front the Southern Hemisphere they think of a pairs game played with a softer yellow ball in a modified “court”.

In my view both are good games, nether replicate actual outdoor cricket completely but it’s a much better way to keep skills over winter than nets, the slight competitive element and being able to practice fielding helps as an addition to nets. The big difference is your bowling to take wickets and batting to score runs something a net just can’t replicate especially for us hyperrational thinkers.

But to my horror for circumstances the 6 a side indoor cricket league here in Sheffield was cancelled at very short notice by the organisers Sheffield Hallam University. This left plenty of cricketers without a league to play in. I felt that maybe the local cricket board could help or the original organisers but nothing came of this. I thought if this happened in the summer the board would have to help teams who suddenly found themselves without a league to play in.

How to start a league in a week.

So, what did I do? Well, I got hold of a local cricket centre, a classic of the new genre of centres, old industrial units on a trading estate left empty and bought up to be turned into a cricket centre. They already hosted a highly successful women’s softball indoor league on a Sunday and I wanted to work out weather we can use the facility for a league.

There is a smaller hall at the centre only three lanes wide without a lot of run up, this on closer inspection seemed ideal to have for the “Aussie” style indoor cricket, official name Action Indoor Cricket. This 8 a side game uses a softball so no pads required but batting in pairs and fast paced nature of it means you get a good work out. Maybe I look at the ECB version with rose tinted glasses having played it from so young and also making the University Finals at Lords for the tiny Aberystwyth University back in 2009 but I do slightly prefer this format but I really warmed to the 8 a side version as games went on.

First things first how do you get teams for a league that didn’t exist 48 hours ago, well you go old school, you get on WhatsApp on the phone and you message anyone you can think of, you go on play cricket sites for teams and send random messages and emails to officials. There is just no short cut to this.

Week one began with 4 teams and week two had 6 teams, we ended up with some sort of makeshift league by the end and have plans to run this again in 2026 irrespective of the other local league coming back or not. But my word it was hard work, I was stressed out for the first three weeks and finally as things ran a bit smoother it came to an end it was a whirlwind but there are a few things to remember for anyone embarking on such a feat in their area.

 

Persistence

Recruiting people to a league to very difference to being a club captain, you rely on yourself to get payers for your team but when running a league so many people totally outside of your control are involved you are crossing your fingers each week in the hope that teams are turning up, paying their fees behaving themselves etc. There is no other way to do this other than nag, if you feel embarrassed you’re nagging to much you must just get over it and nag some more. “Are you turning up?” “Do you have 8?” “Who hasn’t paid their fees for this week?” the list goes on.

 

Delegate things as soon as you can

I was not the best at doing this and found myself taking on all the tasks and spending far more of my free time arranging a makeshift cricket league than I ever thought I would do. I eventually found volunteers to help with umpiring and explained how to score I was able after the first few weeks to not be there for the whole three and a half hours of the nights 3 matches, but I had to convince myself that I didn’t need to be there (my wife also explained this to me several times).

Going forward I appreciate that a one-person committee isn’t sustainable but getting volunteers isn’t always easy I’ve got to be savvy. One thing that was easy was the cricket centre, the previous league run by a University or other I’ve been unevolved in using school sports halls etc are always at the mercy of other bookings and financial decision also you can always feel unwanted. The key difference with using a cricket centre is well, they want cricket on! Sorting out markings stumps and dealing with my various week in and week out rule changes they were more than helps because well its brings money pre-Christmas when nets for clubs haven’t quite started.

 

Don’t take things to heart

This one is easier said than done, when you start something off your own back and are the only person running a league, I felt personally responsible for everyone having a good time, games being on time, player behaviour, balls, scoreboards, play cricket. There were times if wanted to give up and times where I felt hurt by things that happened but mainly because I was taking everything as if it was me personally it pays to take a step back and remember this. I didn’t really know the rules and printed some off a website and had to interpret them, changed the game to 5 ball overs to get three games in a 3-hour period, we managed 3 hours 10 minutes at best but this is a learning point for next year.

Something to remember here is when something is new you must change things on the hoof, things worked and things didn’t by being new and not having rules set in stone it enables flexibility and trying out format changes as things went on. But you cannot allow for certain people’s natural combative spirit, they want to win and can’t cope with just playing the game and seeing how things turn out, my “lets see how it goes” style of management wasn’t quite ready for this.

I felt that I needed to explain the context a lot to people, this was a league set up in a week following a cancellation and I was doing all I could to sort out a game for people primarily form my own club and then others who had been let down. Using my contacts though a number of the teams involved were ones I knew and people I felt could be trusted to sort a team out without to much input from myself, in addition the University provided a team for some games which was a dream they just turned up and played without worry.

 

What Have I learned?

Well first things first is to pester your own players, I arranged a league following a cancellation of one but had not bargained with having such issues getting my own team out, possibly he cancellation lead to people doing other things and looking at the softball as slightly demeaning, but anyone who does play this format of indoor cricket will know the softer ball doesn’t diminish the game at all.

Things take longer than you think, when new we didn’t know the rules and umpiring was a challenge I did a few games and then after I had some help from someone who had played before. But without a “proper” standing umpire the authority to make people get round was hard, this is so important in indoor cricket as the hall is booked for a set time, we were chased out at 10:15pm most weeks.

I have learned that most people once experiencing playing come back again, but the initial way of getting players to come to something new and not fully understood is hard work, I don’t know if it’s a modern world thing but people want everything sorted for them and I couldn’t provide that. Moving on from this I knew the people in my mind who would be keen and targeted them, being at the cricket centre helped, other teams netting spotted the games and were keen. But attracting the more “serious” big clubs was hard as I think they saw the whole things as disorganised and turned their nose up to a “soft” ball but this format is much more international than the 6 a side version so I would argue it has more traction.

Finally making a play cricket site was much easier than I thought, I got a domain from them and was able to sort out a league table fixtures and results easier than I anticipated and found out how to amend rules like balls per overs. But how to input pairs cricket scorecards is odd and I didn’t explain this to people so this ended up with me adding them up in my own time and putting them online I think more delegation is in order. I did this with balls where each team bought their own ball front he centre and it was their responsibility to bring it each week, I think I would do this with results also, the more clubs have to do the less strain it is on yourself a big message if you set up your own league.

 

The Future

I have spoken to the national association for Action Indoor Cricket, and I hope to run the league form September 2026 I have all my learning written down and primarily looking at things like advertising and streaming which can contribute a lot to sponsors keeping costs down for teams and maybe brining in more teams in future.

Anyone else who find themselves with this situation indoor or outdoor then my advice is to go with it, so what if it fails you and a few others get some cricket out of it and well that’s the point of life isn’t it? In the end my team never won a game, but everyone had fun I’ll certainly get a team next year.