Coast province got the first opportunity to host one of three scorers courses scheduled to be held within the year at Coast Gymkhana on Saturday, 4th June, 2011. This course attracted up to 22 persons whom were mainly made up of school teachers. The teachers were not alone, as scorers, volunteers and the development officer for the province were also in attendance.
This course has been necessitated by the need to have scorers especially for the top matches where competition is stiff and the margin for error is as minimal as it can possibly be.
A majority of these participants have gone through the coaching and umpire introductory courses but had lacked the knowledge on scoring. The fact that scoring plays such a significant part within the sport makes it a must for all wishing to be involved in the sport to become conversant with it.
The participants were encouraged as part of their new duties as scorers to arrive early at their games and allow themselves ample time to prepare ahead of the start of matches. Important to them is to get team sheets from both sides, identify the batting line up and persons who are likely to bowl for their respective teams.
Four principal duties of scorers are to record runs and events, to check the correctness of the scores, to accept instructions and acknowledge all signals given to them by umpires.
The course emphasized on accuracy on the entry processes in the different sections of the scorebook; as the recordings will have a bearing on the team’s final scores and the sides will be guided by the recordings made by the scorers to determine the winner of a game.
A considerable amount of time was spent on the extras and mostly the entry of ‘no balls’ and ‘wides’ which the group found to be challenging as they differ with those on byes and leg byes due to the fact that they have to be repeated and their effect on the make-up of an over.
The several ways of dismissals were covered especially the most common ones of bowled, caught, lbw, hit wicket, run out and stumped and most of these were able to be shown from the recordings of past matches with the exception of hit wicket – a non frequent method of dismissal. The rare ways of getting out were only explained as most of them are so rare that they hardly occur in matches.
Most of the scorers at the course acquired the basic knowledge of scoring but lack field experience but should be able to come good after scoring in a number of matches. The first few months will be daunting for them but once they have enough games behind them they’ll be able to cope with those responsibilities.
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