The North Staffs and South Cheshire Cricket League has finally brought back win/lose/draw cricket to its lower leagues for the 2026 season.
This is fantastic news in my opinion, it should have never been taken away. There is as much skill in batting for a draw as there is in any form of the game.
The draw was abolished for the 2020 season, as the league wished to tighten up the league during the half-season that was played after the pandemic. I was still playing at this time, and I expected the draw to be reintroduced for the 2021 season, but it never returned.
This was a big mistake. Games became farcical; teams running up big scores in the first innings and not having to bowl a side out to win in the 2nd innings meant that sometimes, after the tea interval, 40 overs of cricket became pointless. One side had already won the game, the other was just playing for bonus points because there was no draw available. This led to cricketers not valuing their wickets anymore.
In the unique way the North Staffs league is structured, the draws return from division 3 onwards. Division 3 is actually the fifth tier of cricket out of a possible 10. So, all of the players who have been playing in those leagues, which are primarily the clubs’ junior players, have not experienced the adventure of trying to save a game with fielders around the bat and the overs ticking away. I believe there is more pressure in those sorts of situations than there is in a big chase or a game that is just drifting because you’ve already lost.
I also believe that this has had an impact on players’ techniques. Because you haven’t been able to bat for a draw, or for long periods of time, which is a proper defensive technique, has been lost within the game. Trying to bowl a side out when two batsmen have “dug in” on a slow pitch can also be a skill for the fielding captain; they have to rotate through their bowlers, change their fields and sometimes just try and make something happen out of nowhere. It has been all too easy to just rack up a big score and give everybody a bowl in the second innings because you haven’t had to bowl the side out to win.
It also means that declarations make a return, so you can give yourself more time to bowl a side out in the second innings. This is another skill lost since the pandemic. Declare too late, and you may end up running out of overs with a side 8 or 9 wickets down; declare too early, and you risk giving the side batting second more than enough overs to chase the total down. All of these aspects also bring back skills that a captain must properly utilise.
It has taken too long to return, but I hope we do see some exciting and close finishes once again. Long live win/lose/draw cricket.
