Cricket Special Report: History & Structure of Australian Domestic Cricket (Part 2)
(Continuation of Part 1’s discussion regarding the cricketing attributes comprised with-in the domestic structure of a country and Australian Domestic Cricket Structures and History)
The concept of domestic or first-class cricket commenced from England, http://www.senore.com/Cricket/South-Africa-c757. And later, as the former English colonies started to share a taste in the sport of cricket, literally the game grew all-round the world faster than any other major sport played.
Basically, the first-class or domestic cricket is the back-bone of every cricketing nation’s international career, and nations which have a strong in-house infrastructure for the sport, have surely made it to the top of the cricketing world charts provided by the International Cricket Council (ICC).
Domestic structure or cricket gives cricketers a much wider range of a much need and flexible learning curve which allows them to exercise all sorts of cricket elements. Domestic set-ups give the required initial grooming and develop the basic batting, bowling and fielding techniques.
Players from the third-world or developing world who lack the facility of well organised domestic structure start working on their batting and bowling techniques once they make it to the national cricket academies or national team. A classic example at hand is the Pakistani national team, where more than half of the cricketers make it to the team based on sheer talent. As many of the Asian team’s cricketers seen or witnessed by the world arena fail to follow the right protocol of placing the human body behind the rolling cricket ball, which can result in a miss-field and extra runs can be given away.
Another classic example of a cricketer making it into the international arena based on his or her sheer natural is the Pakistani ODI and T20 skipper http://www.senore.com/Cricket/Shahid-Afridi-c2482, who after playing nearly 15 years of international cricket still hasn’t develop the right required batting technique of the defence system. The right hand blazing dasher still has a handful of collections of cricketing shots or stroke play which has allowed him to keep up with the international arena. The sheer natural talent of Afridi was discovered, when the 30 year old was just 16 years of age. It advocates the fact that no matter how strong the cricketing mind of this veteran international cricketer is, he was definitely hired in the team for his talent. If he was given the chance to grow as a cricketer through the proper channelized way of undergoing the national cricket academies and domestic structure, he could have been a much better cricketer.
The irony is that coaches from such cricketing nations are blamed for not doing their jobs properly, as the reality is that such technical batting stances and bowling actions are worked upon not when the cricketer is in his late teens or early 20’s, but when he or she is just 12 or 13 and trying to learn and improve their game in the sport.
Not to forget, that just like any sport, cricket is also based on passion, love and sheer talent for the game. Surely, the inclusion of hard-work and extra practice sessions makes a huge difference in the performance of one’s cricket game.
Cricket is among the most popular sports played at the international, national, local and not to forget, the street cricket. Cricket is among the most famously known and played sport in Australia. Keeping in mind, that the Aussie’s are also fanatics about football and rugby games respectively, a survey done by the Sweeney Sports came-up with the statistics that 59 per cent of the Australian public are interest in cricket.
The sport is so popular in the region, that most of the countrymen take the sport of cricket to be their national sport. Since the colonial rule over the region, cricket is being played to the extent that there were matches scheduled among different parts of the colony.
(To be continued...Part 3)
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