Harry's Rant Page: Nimbyism

I think a page devoted to absurdity which now envelopes cricket's language is now long over due.

There's other stuff that tends that wrangles too...

02/10

Just like blaming the County Championship for the conjestion and volume of cricket during small periods of the summer months, after deciding to introduce a new fourth format and blocks of each format into the calendar; a cricket ground has been effectively banned because a council decided to build a leisure centre with car park near to that existing cricket ground.

Cricket banned at 200-year-old Essex ground amid ‘Nimbyism’ accusations

Three clubs will be forced to find new homes after a person was hit on the leg by a ball in nearby car

Ben Rumsby

Cricket has been banned at a village pitch after a member of the public was hit on the leg by a ball in a car park.

In what has been called “another story of English Nimbyism”, Danbury Parish Council has confirmed that “no adult hardball cricket” can take place at the village’s Dawson Memorial Field “for the foreseeable future”. Records indicate that cricket had been played at the ground since at least 1799.

The ban comes following a meeting of the council last Wednesday, held more than three months after Telegraph Sport revealed play at the Essex ground had been suspended indefinitely. That came after someone in the car park of the adjacent leisure centre was hit on the leg.

The parish council said last week’s decision was reached following “advice received from professional and legal advisors”.

‘Well and truly banned’

Danbury Cricket Club secretary Rory Carlton called the ban an “absolute tragedy” after it left his and other two clubs – Oaklands and Tuskers – unable to play home fixtures. It puts the futures of all clubs at risk.

He told the BBC: “I’m incredibly disappointed, although I have to say not surprised.

“The biggest loss is to the village of Danbury. It really takes something away, that soft benefit for residents.

“We’re trying to find an alternative ground in the local area but, speaking to Essex Cricket, grounds are as rare as hen’s teeth – it’s very difficult to find one.

“[The council] were very keen to say over the summer that it’s not banned; I think it’s safe to say that it is well and truly banned.”

Nimbyism accusations

Phil Walker, editor-in-chief of Wisden Cricket Monthly, said the “demoralising” decision was “unfortunately another story of English Nimbyism”.

He added: “It sets a dangerous precedent because if we are going to move towards this kind of attitude in English life, then there’s a lot of good things out there that are going to fall by the wayside.”

Telegraph Sport revealed in June how two heated meetings had failed to reach agreement on the return of cricket to the village.

The parish council was criticised for a lack of “common sense” and 3,275 people signed a petition before it held an extraordinary meeting on July 9 to decide if the suspension could be lifted.

That meeting determined that “no short-term resolution” was possible and that a further meeting would be held on September 24 following consideration of “a solution to the longer-term resumption of cricket”.

The council added: “Cricket in Danbury is currently played on a multi-use recreation field adjacent to a public car park; on May 17 an incident was recorded whereby a member of the public had been hit on the back of the leg/ankle by a cricket ball. This incident follows reports of two car windows and a roof tile on the Danbury Leisure Centre being broken last season.

“A discussion was held with the cricket teams following the car park incident which revealed that three to four balls on average were hit into the car park every match.

“This led the Parish Council to seek both legal and risk assessment advice, which included a specialist body experienced in assessing risks specifically with regards to cricket.

“The advice from both professionals was to implement mitigation solutions sufficient to prevent injury to residents of Danbury and members of the public using the facilities of the Danbury Leisure Centre and surrounding area. This solution was unequivocal; a minimum of 20 metre high nets would be required, not only along the boundary of the car park but for a significant length of the boundary; the cost of implementation running into tens of thousands of pounds.”

It went on: “We hope, having explained the background to the stance the Parish Council had to take, other than facing future potential litigation (in the event of injury) that our residents and supporters of cricket will understand why the Parish Council and its councillors have been upset over the continuous adverse press and social media commentary.

“Finally, to be clear, not one councillor wanted cricket to be suspended. The Parish Council would have put itself in a potentially vulnerable position if it had ignored the advice given by the experts and it has gone the extra mile to find a pragmatic solution that is also fair to all users of the leisure centre and other facilities the recreation grounds offer to its residents and other members of the public.”

06/08

A spot of hypocrisy this time, if that's the right word.

The H*ndred! I thought that the reason for the existence of a shorter format of 100 balls and the silly gimmicks with the 10 ball double overs/sets was time. That terrestrial TV wouldn't be able to schedule three hours to show a normal T20 match, and the whole point of the divisive claptrap was to get CRICKET on free to view live TV.

I've just looked at my mother's TV guide for yesterday; BBC2 had the Spirits v Indispensables starting at 2.30 PM and the programme concluded at 9.30 PM, obviously both the Men's and Women's games, but certainly a longer scheduled slot than the TV slot we were led to believe was possible and were told was possible.

7 bloody hours!

Time for two Blast games at different venues to run back to back. All that was needed was a little imagination.

26/05

It dawned on me yesterday that the nightwatch-man/er is a superfluous emasculation of the language of cricket as women domestically don't, and women internationally rarely play multi-day format cricket anymore. 

There have been just 40 Women's Test Matches worldwide this century.

Only men's cricket has the need for a nightwatchman on occasions, so why instruct a change (which is almost certainly the case for the poor commentators that continually forget to be wokey)?

24/05

A return to reality yesterday with the Yorkshire commentary only spoilt by Bracegidle going all new age woke at the end using the nightwatcher terminology. He's already said "nightwatchman territory"

Third man was back as were batsmen.

22/05

T20 cricket takes centre stage in the fixtures next week and along with it some idiotic inconsistencies with the team labelling.

Unlike with The Blaze, Hampshire Women don't appear to have an academy, but the Vipers Academy does still appear to be a thing as does Thunder Academy.

However next week also sees Hampshire Hawks Women and Lancashire 2nd XI Women (v Blaze 2nd XI) having T20 games.

Hampshire 2nd XI Women also play games of T20 next week as do Lancashire Thunder.

Warwickshire appear to fallen out with Birmingham, so now in T20 we just have Bears Men and Bears Women, but also Warwickshire Men 2nd XI but also we have:

Neither Hawks or Bears Women...

.. .I'm not even trying to be obtuse, I'm just running through the fixture list. That's before we get to the unspecified gender u16s fixtures, do we presume that they're lads' fixtures or are we not allowed to presume anymore?

For the record England Lions play India Men A next week and our team remains Notts Outlaws for the Blast competition (for now at least).

20/05

The Durham commentators continued the emasculation of a nightwatchman yesterday with nightwatch...

Sounds like something the stalker nightwatcher might wear to tell the time, maybe

19/05

John on Facebook has just pointed out a new one on Pravda, but I'm sure some of the new wave of cricket commentators (which are appearing on the live streams away from the BBC output) will already use it, instead of Nightwatchman, the latest Pravda report has Rob Lord as a "nightwatcher".

Third man dropped the man a couple of years back, about the same time as batsman became batter, which still sound lame and out of context (to me).

The woke agenda appears to wish to eliminate man/men, wherever it appears in cricket,which is a little bit of a contridiction as men and women do not play along side each other at the elite level but the County name + Men or Women nevertheless do now appear on the online scorecards, not that Nottinghamshire Women play Rothesay County Championship or much else. The Blaze, an exclusively women's franchise, appears to have escaped so far.

Nightwatcher, sounds like a euphemism for a stalker or Peeping Tom.

A nightwatchman in contrast, by definition looks after something over night 

Dictionary

Definitions from Oxford Languages 

nightwatchman

/ˌnʌɪtˈwɒtʃmən/

noun

1. 1.

   a person whose job is to guard a building at night.
2. 2.

   Cricket

   an inferior batter sent in to bat when a wicket falls just before the end of a day's play, to avoid the dismissal of a better one in adverse conditions.