ON MONDAY, Wiltshire Cricket attended the Wiltshire County Cricket League pre-season meeting.

A presentation was given regarding the new ECB campaign Get the Game On.

2014 was a big year for cricket boards nationally in terms of looking at league structures and formats, such as start times and numbers of overs.

In Wiltshire we saw as a result major changes to the WEPL structure and also a move to earlier start times (1pm as opposed to 2pm) across all divisions of the Wiltshire County Cricket League.

In 2015 we will continue to look at structures but, more importantly, we will begin delving a bit deeper into the things that could be changed within leagues and clubs that could potentially help to retain more players and clubs in cricket.

For example, this will include looking at incentives by leagues for teams to play on a match day affected by rain. For example:

- Reviewed rain regulations

- Bonus point systems that reward teams in shortened games as much as they do in full games

- Reduced points for cancelled games

- Player loan systems to help out the clubs with excess players as well as those with less than 11

- Flexible start times to cater for predicted rain and/or individual club situations

- Maximised player involvement in each game of cricket

- Reward clubs that ‘Get the Game On’

The Get the Game on campaign will provide targeted resources to all groups who can have an influence in getting more games of cricket played.

This includes leagues and clubs as well as all matchday influencers and decision makers, including captains, groundstaff, coaches and umpires.

The Get the Game on resources can be accessed at getthegameon.co.uk.

A big part of Wiltshire Cricket’s work in 2015 will be engaging with our priority leagues to see if we can introduce some of the points above.