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For the better part of 100 years, the format for club cricket in Barbados has, by and large, remained unchanged.

It has tooted along, content in its established position as the sporting king, seemingly oblivious to the staggering transformation in other areas of life on this island of ours.

The number of teams has, indeed, multiplied threefold, the demarcation line between the two organisations that administer the game, the Barbados Cricket Association (BCA) and the Barbados Cricket League (BCL), has become less and less pronounced with time and the racial and social barriers that were once plainly visible have come tumbling down.

Limited-overs cricket has also taken its inevitable place. But, whatever other adjustments there have been, have been minor.

Courage

The basic structure is the same.

The season remains stuck in the second, wetter, half of the year. Matches are either over three days, for the top divisions, or two, for the lower divisions.

Points are still awarded 8-3-1-0.

Pitches, as always, are left exposed to the elements that, consequently, have a negative effect on performance and make the championships a lottery.

As cricket increasingly loses its appeal to the modern generation, two complaints are constant from those who now play the game at club level.

One is that the season is too long and drawn out, the other that conditions are too dependent on the weather.

Finally, after grappling with the situation for years, the BCA has plucked up enough courage to initiate changes.

From next year, president Stephen Alleyne has revealed, all Division 1 matches will be over two extended days, Saturday and Sunday, starting at 10 a.m., and pitches will be covered.

Barbadians remain a conservative lot, wary of change, especially as fundamental as that now proposed by the BCA. It was not surprising that Alleyne’s pronouncement immediately prompted doubting queries.

How are players going to get time off to turn up at that hour of the morning, every Saturday and Sunday?

Significant

How will clubs be able to afford providing lunch and tea? How can groundsmen prepare proper pitches for a morning start when they can hardly get one ready for 1 p.m. now? How will the covers be secured and who will drag them on and off?

They are all pertinent issues, of course, but none so difficult that they should undermine what is a significant development for Barbados cricket.

At one fell swoop, it shortens the Division 1 championship to 13 weekends and ensures that overall conditions approximate to those in the first-class game which should be the aim of all those who play at the top level.

The provision of covers means not only dry pitches on the weekend but for club practice during the week as well, an equally critical consideration.

Although Alleyne did not say so, the changes also allow the BCA to separate the two forms of the game, as is now standard operating procedure at both international and regional level. At the moment, they are intertwined, a mixture that confuses players.

One-day glitz

To complete the division, coloured uniforms, white balls and black sightscreens should be obligatory for the limited-overs Barbados Fire Shield and Cup tournaments. They have all become part of the glitz of one-day cricket.

Scheduling the Shield and Cup first, when the days are longer and the weather more reliable – let’s say next year from May 19 to July 1 – the Division 1 championship could be concluded over the next 13 weekends between July 7-8 and October 6-7.

It would leave the national squad ample time to be prepared for the Red Stripe Bowl and the Busta Cup.

There are bound to be teething problems in any new venture and this is unlikely to be any different. But the game in Barbados has been in desperate need of an overhaul for some time.

It is not that such innovations will suddenly return Barbados to the glory days of Sobers, Hunte, Nurse, Hall, Griffith and the other greats – or even guarantee that they can beat a bunch of aging West Indian expatriates parading as the United States in next year’s Red Stripe Bowl. But they do address some of the players’ main gripes.

As the only sport in Barbados (since the hockey facility and the gymnasium at the Garfield Sobers Complex) that has to stop for even the slightest rain, cannot be played at night and occupies more than a couple of hours, cricket’s eminent place is being challenged.

The BCA now appears to recognise that reality.

© The Barbados Nation