The file of merging the data from the EAPL2 Player Survey and the MSC Club Survey relating to Division 1 clubs. It is in the interest of ALL clubs to take note.

MergedSurveyComplete 01-02-21

A decision on Power Plays will be made by the Management Sub Committee after consultation between them and the Umpires Association and (if agreement has been reached following this consultation) with 1st Division clubs.

In view of the convincing results in both the EAPL2 Player Survey and the MSC Club Survey it seems likely that start times for Division 1 will be moved to 12pm from the start of the 2021 season. A decision on this will be finalised at the MSC meeting later in February. On the question of a different ball for use in Division 1 it was agreed that the MSC will assess other balls in trials over season 2021 in some 1st Division matches to provide proper objective assessment on which a decision will be made for season 2022.

The decision on any other proposed changes will be made by the Management Sub Committee after any necessary further consultation between the MSC, the clubs and (where appropriate) the Umpires Association.

Rick Jones

To view all the latest Overseas Player information, then either click the link under More on the Home Page, or click the link below

Overseas Player Info

The deadline for returns to the Suggested Rule changes has expired but I intend to allow an extension until next Friday 15th January to allow for a few more replies. There has been some confusion with 2 different versions. The document can be found on the website and the correct version is attached to the email that is sent to all clubs Clubs are reminded that the status quo will be assumed if clubs have not responded by the new deadline.

There is a need for clarification as there has been some duplication.

All First Division clubs will by now have received an email sent from the MSC as a result of an initiative from the various County Boards associated with the EAPL pyramid, asking all players to give their views on the possibility of a Second Division of the EAPL. The MSC feel that all clubs should be made aware of this initiative and not just First Division clubs. The data will be analysed by the County Boards and the results sent to the MSC for appropriate action.

However in the attached file are suggested rule changes received from clubs before the AGM that the MSC have considered. Our views are outlined and where requested we would like the views of your club (not individual responses) by email to:

Rick Jones rickjones01473@gmail.com– by Thursday 31st December please.

If we have heard nothing by that date then it will be assumed that you agree with the status quo. The MSC will then analyse, adjudicate and notify any rule changes to be applied.

Rick Jones, Assistant Secretary

RuleChangeSuggestion2020

Due to the impending finalisation of the UK’s withdrawal from the EU, which will lead to a change to the employment status of EU residents and possibly to EU passport holders, the League will not be looking into any possible registration of “overseas” players until after January 1st 2021, and certainly not until we have received clarifications from the Home Office and the ECB over the position of players not normally resident within the UK, and without the necessary visas to be allowed to participate in any sport, at any level.
Once such clarification has been received then we shall consider applications from member clubs, and players. We hope everyone will understand why we have to delay making decisions at this time, in case they are not valid going into next year.

Despite some optimism on Tuesday about recreational cricket restarting soon, it is now clear that this is not to be. The MSC decision circulated to clubs over the weekend will therefore stand and we hope this will help to clarify why the decision was taken.

Playing Dates and Notice Period
As our early correspondence indicated it was always our aim to give clubs three weeks notice to commence play. Whilst many of our members have committed volunteers and others lucky enough to have professional groundsmen who have been working solidly to keep squares and outfields fit for play, many others have not been able to do so. It is also our understanding that some council maintained facilities may not have had much work done at all. This has great bearing on the safety of players and cannot be ignored.
We have passed the period for start dates on the 4th and 11th July. Following feedback on Circular 4 (we received responses from approximately 60% of clubs) many of those who replied could not facilitate home matches after the 12th September. This would result in a further re-write of the fixture list and would require matches to be played on Sundays or Bank Holidays and this therefore is not a practical solution.

Transportation Issues
The current government advice states you should not carry passengers in a car unless they are from your household. Many of you will be familiar with the situation in having youngsters and non drivers in the team and you have to load up three or four cars with players and kit. It is simply not feasible to take up to 11 cars to matches and if we can keep clubs playing locally to each other it will make transport easier.

Adaptive Games
Coupled with this there is also the consideration that if cricket is allowed to start matches are very likely to be strongly adapted from our usual formats to begin with. This drew at length discussion around the geographical restrictions in our league.
For instance if we consider Division One, are we going to ask clubs to travel in the most extreme example a journey of around an hour and twenty minutes to play a twenty over match, with a small team taking say eight cars and faced with the prospect that clubhouse and changing facilities may not be open and available?

Summary
At the end of the day we want people playing cricket and in the current circumstances we want to make the decision process around whether to play or not as easy as possible. Our consideration as to the best way is to keep things as local as possible and the attached SUGGESTED groupings are a simple GEOGRAPHICAL solution to do this, without being prescriptive in any way as clubs are free to organise in any way they want, (within the ECB guidelines at that time.)
All the very best from the committee and here is to hoping that we can get some cricket
underway soon.

Suggested Groupings

Group A: Maldon (4); West Mersea (2); Witham (3); Kelvedon & Feering (2); Copford (2); Abberton (2).
Group B: Braintree (2); Coggeshall (3); Dunmow (2); Little Bardfield Village (1); Halstead (3); Chappel & Wakes Colne (2).
Group C: Earls Colne (1); Colchester Cavaliers (1); Eight Ash Green (2); West Bergholt (2); Boxted (1); Great Bromley (1).
Group D: Wivenhoe (2); Clacton (1); Elmstead (2); Frinton (2); Tendring (1); Harwich & D. (2).
Group E: Mistley (3); Hadleigh (2); Ipswich (3); Copdock & O.I. (2); Ipswich & E.S. (2); East Bergholt (2).
Group F: Sudbury (2); Long Melford (2); Haverhill (3); Brockley (2); Nowton (2); Bury St. Edmunds (3).
Group G: Mildenhall (4): Tuddenham (1); Worlington (3); Lakenheath (2); Elveden (1); Bardwell (1).
Group H: Woolpit (4); Stowmarket (2); Stowupland (2); Battisford (1); Needham Market (1); Earls Stonham (1); Walsham le Willows (1).
Group I: Kesgrave (2); Felixstowe & C. (3); Melton St. Audrys (2); St. Margarets (2); Sudbourne Hall (1); Nacton (2).
Group J: Worlingworth (1); Yoxford (1); Easton (2); Saxmundham (1); Woodbridge (2) Stradbroke (1).
Additional Notes (Parentheses indicates the number of teams fielded by that club in the Two Counties Championship)
Ardleigh and Brightlingsea are Sunday teams only, and have not been added, but clubs can still contact them.

There will be no registration of players or need to phone results or enter results on play-cricket. Players therefore have freedom to play for more than one club during this season without penalty.
The groups are organised geographically ONLY and are NOT in any way fixed as any club can organise any fixture they wish with any other club at whatever level. Thus any informal organisation of local clubs who wish to organise a “Mini League” would be supported 100% by the MSC. Sunday only teams and Ladies teams have similar freedom.
The strength of the teams can of course be varied by mutual agreement to ensure a competitive match between equally balanced teams. Consideration MUST be given to ensure that young players have plenty of opportunity to play and to that end the MSC would have no issue with, for example, 2 young players playing half a match each. – indeed such action should be encouraged.
Matches can be played on any day and at any time according to the ECB rules valid on that day and can therefore be changed at any time up to the start of the match by mutual agreement between the two teams.
There will be no Umpires Panel allocation but a list will be provided to all clubs of times and dates when an umpire is available to officiate and what the fee will be at a later date.

Up to date Club Championship Reps can be viewed via the link below.

2020 (CLUB CONTACTS)

A loophole in the Player loan rules, which was exploited last season, has now been closed tightly shut, with new rules now coming into replace the previous wording of the rules. The revised passages are in italics.

So now Rule 13 will read as such:

13. PLAYERS There will be registration of players using the England & Wales Cricket Board registration form on the Two Counties Play-Cricket website. All players must be registered on Play-Cricket. Players can only be registered after the 1^st August with the permission of the Management Sub-Committee. Players cannot play for more than one Club in the East Anglian Premier League Feeder System (Cambridgeshire & Huntingdon Premier League, Norfolk Cricket Alliance, and the Two Counties Championship, nor be a registered player for any Premier League, and any connected feeder system during a season except with permission from the Management Sub-Committee.EXCEPTIONS
    1) Any player playing for a Club in the Two Counties Saturday divisions (i.e. 1-9) is allowed to play for another Club in the Sunday League and in the Two Counties Ladies competitions.

PLAYER LOAN ARRANGEMENTS

2) Any player under the age of 16 and over 50 as of April 1^st of the current season is allowed to play for one other club providing he/she has not played more than eight matches for the parent Club. The club wishing to borrow an eligible player must submit a registration form on the Two Counties Play-Cricket website, but not check the box for a permanent transfer. The parent club will then be asked for permission for the loan to go through, and, also add the agreed length of the loan period. Players taken on loan from one club to another should not play against the parent club, and they can only play for the loaning clubs lowest ranked team, if they have more than one team in the League. Player loans arranged after August 1^st, must have had their registration approval confirmed before they can play for the loaning club.

3) Any player aged 17 or 18 as of April 1^st of the current season is allowed to play for one other club providing he/she has not played more than four matches for the parent Club. The club wishing to borrow an eligible player must submit a registration form on the Two Counties Play-Cricket website, but not check the box for a permanent transfer. The parent club will then be asked for permission for the loan to go through, and, also add the agreed length of the loan period. Players taken on loan from one club to another should not play against the parent club, and they can only play for the loaning clubs lowest ranked team, if they have more than one team in the League. Player loans arranged after August 1^st, must have had their registration approval confirmed before they can play for the loaning club.

b. There may be occasions when a new player represents his club before registration on Play-Cricket has been completed. The registration should be completed within the same time frame as the requirement to post the full scorecard on Play-Cricket (rule 19b). Should that registration still be incomplete seven days after the date of the match then a deduction of 5 points will be levied. Any further delay could result in rule 13c being applied.
As from August 1^st, registration must have been granted prior to the player being eligible to play.

PENALTIES

c. Any club adjudged to have fielded an ineligible player shall be penalized by forfeiting any points gained in that match plus a further sixteen points. In addition, the opposing team will automatically be awarded the match and receive 20 points. There will be a right of appeal for both player and club. A deposit of £50 is required to activate an appeal which will be conducted in accordance with the appeals procedure as set out under the ECB regulations for cricket leagues (see ECB regulation 4, further down this document). The player involved may be banned from the Championship for the remainder of the season.

An ineligible player is one who is not registered on Play-Cricket for the club he/she was playing, or deemed to be ineligible by the Management Sub-Committee.

Just to quickly run through the main points from the AGM of the League held on Wednesday 10th October. An update on the health of the Chairman, Norman Atkins, was given by Acting Chairman, Rick Jones. There was also a period of reflection in memory of our President, Geoff Newman, who passed away in September, and whose funeral was on the day following the AGM.
A further plea was made for someone to come forward to take on the role of League Secretary, with Alan Rogers reverting to his role as Assistant Secretary. The new Secretary, as and when we have one, will have Alan guiding him or her along the way for about a year. A new role is also being created on the Management Sub-Committee for a Ladies Representative, whom shall be elected at the Ladies AGM.
Various reports followed from Committee members, and the straw polls about some of the suggestions put forward was also taken, and those will be considered at the next Committee meeting, along with a few other rule changes brought about by the changes to Play-Cricket, and to the use of Loan Players.
The constitution of the League for next season, will also be finalised. Two of the three clubs that requested re-admission after numerous concessions deemed it necessary, were re-elected. Those being Halstead III, and Ipswich & East Suffolk II. Kelvedon & Feering II did not re-apply. Four additional teams will join Division NIne; Melton St. Audrys II; Mildenhall V; Stowupland II; and, Woodbridge II. BT Waldringfield were elected to the League, but will probably have to play some of their home matches on other grounds, as their facilities are not up to the standard felt adequate.
The Committee will also have now to regionalise Divisions Eight and NIne, both into two sections. In addition to the three teams promoted from Division Nine by right; Woodbridge, Eight Ash Green II, and Lakenheath II, the ten clubs that finished the Division Nine seasons with the most points will be added to Division Eight.
The remaining 19 teams will then form the two Division Nines.
It was also reported that the Ladies 35 over Championship will now fall under the auspicies of the East Anglian Premier League, but the T20s will remain in the Two Counties Championship.

Since August 1st, and the registration deadline, I have had numerous “new registration requests” which are not actually new at all, and need not be submitted. I am referring to players who are listed now as “Inactive”, which can be for one of many reasons, but they remain players registered to your club. They only need to be re-activated. This is easily done by the club admins. What they need to do is, (1) go to their list of Members (2) change the filter to Inactive, and those players appear. Then check the box and hit Reactivate. Simples, job done, no further action required, the player will now re-appear in the All Players list for your club.

Clubs are reminded that they have a duty of care towards all young players under the age of 18 and particularly under the age of 13 …… Exactly what this means and the ECB guidelines for young cricketers can be found in detail on page 22 of the 2019 Handbook and you are asked to make sure that club officials read this and comply in all respects. Parental consent will be requested automatically by the ECB and then the MSC will obtain from the relevant County Board the playing capabilities of all young cricketers.

As you are all aware all players are required to be registered on play-cricket before they play in the Championship. Occasionally with senior players the MSC have relaxed this requirement in the interests of getting 11 players on the field to “get the game on” and have permitted registration to take place after the event and within the same time frame as the requirement to post the full scorecard on play-cricket.

It should be emphasised that young cricketers below school year 8 shall not be permitted to play or young cricketers in School Year 7 who are not members of a County Squad are permitted to play in the championship. Clearance from the ECB via play-cricket registration and the County Board Coaches MUST take place before an  young cricketer in School year 7 plays in open age cricket. There are possible legal liabilities and insurance implications if such a young cricketer is subsequently injured and we have to point out that the League will not accept any responsibility should a club choose to play an under age or unregistered player without the league knowledge.