PLEASE READ THIS ANNOUNCEMENT IN FULL TO THE END - IT CONTAINS IMPORTANT INFORMATION

It is with regret that the club feels it necessary to post yet ANOTHER article relating to short bowling in the nets. Every effort has been made to reason with bowlers and ask them to take a sensible and adult approach on this matter. However, it seems that the school sports hall brings out the schoolboy in some of our senior bowlers and the temptation to "dig one in" is to great to bear.

It would appear that our pacier bowlers do not appreciate it when a batsman has the bare faced audacity to strike the ball and they then feel the need to re-inflate their dented ego by unsettling the offender with a rib tickler. Myself and Jim have tried for several weeks to explain why we do not want this situation to develop in the nets but it seems that the situation is if anything worsening rather than improving. However, on that note I have to say that my own personal experience last week was that Paul Sindrey bowled perfectly to me with good length teasers outside the off stump and so I must give credit where it's due there. However, I did see Sheridan narrowly avoid a ball that was arrowing towards his head and this only missed by a couple of inches which is not acceptable (I'm not sure who the culprit was but that is irrelevant as this is not a witch hunt).

In light of the above the club are forced to take draconian action as it seems that reasoning in an adult way simply falls on deaf ears and we would prefer to act now rather than wait for a serious injury to force us to take stock.

Here is a summary of the reasoning why we do not want to see intentional short bowling in the nets:

• We do not want to see a facial or serious head injury to one of our mates in the nets.
• We do not have insurance to cover serious injury.
• The surface at Goffs School is not a dedicated synthetic cricket surface and does not produce a natural bounce.
• Short bowling does not give the batsmen the opportunity to face fuller length bowling akin to that faced during the season.
• The match pitches that we play on are not suitable for short bowling and so this is not really considered good practice for the bowlers.
• The majority of the batsmen in the nets are very inexperienced.
• We rarely face or bowl short balls in a match situation and we do not want to encourage our bowlers to adopt this style of bowling with any regularity as we only play friendly matches.

In light of the above the club will now be adopting a ZERO TOLERANCE stance on intentional bouncers in the nets and the following measures will be introduced over the next two weeks and will remain in place until further notice.

• THE CLUB HELMET MUST BE WORN BY ALL BATSMEN IN THE FAST LANE AT NETS
  
  
• THE FAST LANE WILL BE CLOSELY MONITORED AND ANYONE SEEN PERSITENTLY BOWLING SHORT WILL BE ASKED TO STOP BOWLING
  
  
• BATSMEN ARE EXPECTED TO REPORT ANY BOUNCING TO CLUB OFFICIALS
  
  
• ANY UNINTENTIONAL SHORT BALLS MUST BE FOLLOWED BY AN APOLOGY TO THE BATSMAN
  
  
• PERSISTENT UNINTENTIONAL SHORT BOWLING WILL NOT BE TOLERATED - THE PLAYER MUST STOP BOWLING AT PACE IF THEY CAN NOT RELIABLY CONTROL THE DELIVERY
  
  
• A BOUNCER LANE WILL BE ARRANGED ON REQUEST TO ASSIST WITH THE PREVIOUS OR IF A PLAYER FEELS IT IS NECESSARY TO PRACTICE THE ART. (BATSMEN WILL BE ASKED TO VOLUNTEER TO BAT IN THIS LANE AND A HELMET WILL BE COMPULSORY - NO VOLUNTEERS WILL MEAN BOWLING AT STUMPS ONLY)
  

PLEASE NOTE - WHETHER YOU AGREE OR NOT THIS IS THE STANCE THE CLUB ARE TAKING AND THE FOLLOWING SANCTIONS WILL BE APPLIED TO PERSISTENT OFFENDERS

• Players will be asked not to bowl pace at net sessions and in extreme cases will be asked not to attend indefinitely.
  
  
• Contracted players will be disregarded for selection for 2 full matches during the season. The matches will be decided by the selectors.
  
  
• Ad Hoc players will still be considered for selection when available but for all matches preference will be given to more responsible team mates if available.
  

PLEASE DON'T MAKE LIFE EASIER FOR THE SELECTORS BY INFRINGING ON THESE RULES!!

The above measures will be phased in tonight on a relaxed trial basis and implemented in full from next Wednesday onwards.

The club apologises to all of those mature and responsible characters who attend nets for any inconvenience that these measure may cause.

A huge amount of effort goes into running this cricket club behind the scenes and this is a real pain in the arse for club officials to police and we really do not want to add this to the long list of tasks. All we ask is that players please appreciate that we go to a lot of effort so you can all enjoy your cricket and that the club has the players interests, enjoyment and safety at heart. When requests like this are ridiculed and ignored it really makes us feel like jacking the whole business in, taking the website down and shutting the lid on Rosaneri Cricket Club.  We don't always get things right and we take a lot of criticism when we get things wrong but we will not compromise on this issue as it's the sort of thing that ends up in someone getting injured and then hindsight becomes a great tool. We would prefer to use foresight in these kinds of circumstances.

We don't get paid for this so help us out !!!