Smile You are on Camera

 

Hello readers, Ive been away playing cricket but also travelling to both the Lake District and Lake Garda recently, but nobody could escape a club cricket story that blew up in the last few weeks concerning a team in Teeside and some ‘clicking’. 

Now just like the maximum capacity signs in a hotel lift this story has been over capacity for a long time now and quite frankly I’ll take the stairs. 

One thing I did think of though is streaming in club cricket and how it’s been around for several years now and becoming a staple of club cricket, I wanted to write down some thoughts both good and bad about it. 

First, I’ll start with the positives about streaming, I don’t want to advertise certain systems over other so I will try and avoid using brands but you will know the ones I mean. 

Advertising 

Now this has been a big change in club cricket, I’ve never really understood sponsorships really from a business point of view, what if any increased trade/income does boundary boards and shirt sponsors really bring, they nearly always are just someone who plays for the club or is associated with it. I’m a career civil servant so will not pretend to have any small business acumen so maybe there is something in it. The change is the streaming isn’t just about shirts and boards, banners and pop-up adverts can cover the You Tube stream getting extra money for clubs with expose the “global” market. 

Good Cricket 

This is something I feel passionate about, I do think that many of the cricket establishment and the public have this few of people bumbling about on village greens. The streams show quality cricket and genuine feats or amazing athletic ability when catching and fielding for example. Within the cricket world it shows the club cricket is bloody good and very competitive. This gives a show window especially in higher levels to people who maybe didn’t quite make it years ago. This is why for ECB Premier Leagues and maybe the next tier down I’ve got no issue with ubiquitous streaming.

Viral Clips 

Now this is a good and bad situation (re Saltburn) but I’ll cover the good section here, the viral clips of funny events help to get cricket traction during the summer period on the various social media platforms, being 38 I think it’s pretty much illegal for me to be on Tick Tock but I’m told these clips work well on there. It’s nice because cricket also have this window in the summer where it doesn’t have to compete without sports even in the amateur world, so it dominates the world for a few months a year. 

The not so good 

Pile Ons and Cheating 

This is where I come back to the Saltburn incident, streaming is now all over the place and so many clubs have it, but I think when you’re playing it’s very easy to forget that it’s there. The response of people telling stories about dodgy tactics, recreational ball tampering and general shithousery fill club bars post games. But like older people who enjoyed nights out getting drunk prior to Facebook recording it all maybe there is an element that the folk law and the context is forgotten when people can join in the comments on You Tube. People need to remember that streaming is there and think about the consequences fair or otherwise, I think more needs to be done to strengthen guidance in this field. 

Safeguarding 

Now this is more nuanced that the title implies, we all know about filming or photographing kids who are playing adult cricket. But my point here is slightly deeper than that, if all my failures are on stream, then so be it – last year I posted be getting hit in the chest batting as ineptly as usual then getting bowled next ball. But for younger players failures are on there for people to watch on You Tube, clip up or remind you about repeatedly. Whether you like it or not mental maturity through just genetics isn’t something teenagers are that know for things can get quite horrible quite quickly. This is why I think there needs to me more in the safeguarding material about using the streaming footage that might have been consented by a parents to facilitate bullying of young players by their peers – “look you got out to them” “what a rubbish shot to get out” “why are you bowling loads of wides?” 

What’s it for?

This section reminded me of a clip of Greg James in their podcast, not something I watch but the clip was good for this story, he explained that playing village cricket in lower leagues or Sunday, he does want it streamed nobody cares it doesn’t matter. This is a valid point; I don’t mind watching some wickets back post-game but certainly after a week has passed that You Tube video is long forgotten I’m never going to go back to it I just don’t care. I relay don’t see the point of having a stream in a cricketing sense for the sake of it but understand above the advertising element of the service. But where is all this data going? It’s there in You Tube for ever unless somebody remembers to take it down, is this just building data exponentially the videos are pretty long for a full 50 over game, not really sure given the two driest cricket season in my lifetime coming back-to-back I want to be part of creating the need for more data centres around the country and the world. I am not an expert on this but if anyone who does not about the data storage and lifespan of this stuff does what to comment you are more than welcome. 

I still think all in all there are plenty of positives for the streaming of cricket but I sort of share the viewpoint of Greg James also, top level ECB Prem needs to have this in all games and I don’t mind the odd week where I play on one but when it goes down the levels, I think it’s a bit odd. I haven’t even got into the consent or people who don’t want to be filmed for personal reasons in this article. Next time I get a few wickets on one sure I’ll clip it up, but I do feel most players are similar that they are not going back through videos months later. 

In the words of Hard-Fi whether we like it or not – We are the stars of CCTV!!