Am I being selfish wanting to bat in cricket?

[popper728]

Sorry, a boring cricket one!

I have recently taken up women’s cricket, I’ve only been playing for a month or so. I’ve only played one game and have another tomorrow.
I’ve picked up bowling really quickly and am doing well.
I hit a wall with batting in training, and I didn’t score any runs in my first game. On Thursday, I had a really long batting session where I realised how much I was going wrong, and I really got the hang of it and did well. I got excited to bat on the weekend.

In my cricket league there are 10 players but only 9 bat. I haven’t been chosen to bat.
I really wanted to use the opportunity to show what I’ve learnt and feel I would do so much better, but I don’t get to.
On one hand, I can see why I haven’t been picked. Everyone else is more experienced and I haven’t scored runs yet.
On the other hand, I want to have the experience and practice what I’ve learnt.

I’m going to be seeing the captain early in the morning as we’re friends with her.

Shall I say something or not bother?

In my cricket league there are 10 players but only 9 bat.

Your league plays some weird-ass rules, then.

Stop playing in a Mickey mouse league

I’m a women’s cricketer.
I think YABU, sorry. You will get your chance, just stick it out and keep up with practice.

Well I’m doing it for enjoyment and I’m probably not ready to go to a proper league yet. Point is do I sound pathetic asking to bat?

That was my first thought. I assume it’s to try to make sure a game finishes in one day of play with two completed innings, but there must be better ways of doing it. When I played, batters had to retire when they scored twenty, although they could come back in if the team were all out before their overs were finished.

I don’t think so. It would be fairest to rotate the non-batting player. Batting is the most fun part of cricket.

erm... what?! I've never heard of that. do you mean in practice? because batters bat until they are out.... Disclaimer- I grew up in Bangladesh, but the rules of cricket are pretty universal, no?

personally I wouldn't ask. not so you don't sound pathetic... but its only your second game. just bide your time.

I really don’t know why it’s the rules! I think each team only requires 9 players, but if you play 10 then one doesn’t bat 🫠

It was one of the rules in our only-for-fun league. 20 overs for each innings and any batter who scored 20 (actually 26 was the maximum, since you could be on 19 and then hit a six) had to retire. The point was to allow more people to bat. But if the whole team was out or retired, the retired batters could come back in and score without limit. It worked well.

@therealcookiemonster - the rules of cricket are not universal! My dc and I play various age groups, men's, women's and have done since U9s. There are many variations on playing for a set number of overs, or runs, or until you are out.

But that cricket. Sometimes you don't get to bat. DH was a wicket keeper... they were often out of overs by his turn in the batting order... he was the last hoper who could often belt out a few extra runs at the end but was a risk taker.

A cricket team consists of 11 players. The batting order is determined before the match but, assuming there are enough balls/overs left, all 11 should be in to bat at some point. I've never heard of a team with only 9 players and one 'spare', and I've been on cricket pitches for over 25yrs now.

The younger groups that I've been involved with definitely have a batting limit for some matches. This is to ensure that as many as possible get to bat. In youth teams that's often 20/30 as a top score.

My boys play adult cricket now and sometimes at 5/6 in the batting order and they don't always get to bat. In one memorable match only the first 3 batted.

I would definitely speak to the coach and find out how the batting order is decided and if the person being left out is chosen on rotation or performance.

I played women’s cricket, we play development games, and we have 10 players / 5 pairs. Each pair gets to bat for 3 or 4 wickets depending on the number of agreed overs in the game.
Everyone gets the chance to bat and the agreement is everyone bowls too but that is a little harder so sometimes people don’t want to do that and sit out.
i would suggest you keep practicing, maybe go to winter nets if your team do them, and just enjoy it instead of trying to “prove” yourself this early in your journey.

OP can't change the rules, so she's stuck with how they play 🤷

Since you've only just started, and only played one game I think you need to wait and bide your time. If you were five games in say, and not getting to bat then fair enough but to say something after one game isn't reasonable in my opinion. Also, if the batting line up has been announced then the captain is unlikely to change it for this game in any event as that would be unfair on the other players. Just hang on in there and see what happens in the next few games.