Inter-District 2025 post mortem

Veterans League

It has not been a good season for the Veterans' Yorkshire Inter-District team finishing 4th of 9 teams, a second consecutive 4th place finish. The Huddersfield team had been a serial winner of the Yorkshire title before Covid and did also win the reduced 5-team competition in 2021 when some teams declined to resume normal activity after Covid. Since then they have finished 4th three times and 2nd (in 2023) but they have taken the 4th position for the last two years, so by any analysis, the team is on the decline. Some may want to deny that it is the case but they are only fooling themselves.

Let me introduce my case for change, which us oldies are always accused of not welcoming. I don't believe that is always the case, it is sometimes we know we need to change but don't know what that change looks like. Let me make my case.

There are lots of statistics further down this posting which may provide some pointers to the reason for the decline in results, but to this correspondent, the answer is quite clear. As a regular observer of these matches over the last eleven years I think the solution is not about team selection or any bowler not performing at their League level, the answer is much more fundamental than that.

I meet weekly with my ancient think-tank members of five old bowlers lubricated with a couple of pints of Madri or Sam Smith's Sovereign, who like to reminisce about times in their prime when they played at the highest level of bowling in the area. They reflect on the past practice of the County teams being selected on a firm basis. That being that, all the best bowlers played in the Away team as this was always going to be the hardest test for any team. Why would you subject your second team bowlers to the task of facing the most difficult challenge?

Historically bowlers would usually make their County debut playing for the Home team and only when they had established themselves at that level, then they may be 'promoted' to the away team.  I believe that this is a principle that the County teams still adhere to today and that hasn't done them any damage this last weekend when they won the national title.

If I use that as a starting point it is clear that this practice is not being used in the Veterans' team selection. The fact is that the two teams are practically two separate entities. They are not acting as one team with one objective. The two team captains recruit and select bowlers that they want in their team without any reference to the other team at all. This worked well in the past but has failed them in more recent years as other teams have moved ahead of them notably Leeds in the updated method of team selection and has resulted in two lop-sided representative teams. The best players could be in either team.

The figures below in the 2025 Home team and Away team records show that the Huddersfield Home team has won all 8 of their matches on home greens which is two more than any other team. Whereas the away team has finished second-to-bottom of the table of Away teams with a single win all season and that was against the Wakefield Home team which only had one home win all season. I don't blame the Away team bowlers for that. I think we need to look at the formation of the Away team to ensure that it is strong enough to win more away matches.

The tables below emphasise the point I am making. The Home team has two of the top 5 bowlers in the League. They are top bowlers playing against second-string teams in the Inter-District League. In comparison, the Huddersfield Away team has one bowler in the top 60 away team bowlers. That cannot be right. We are not getting the best out of either set of bowlers.

Leeds are the 2025 Inter-District Champions and, although I don't know their bowlers well enough, there are strong indicators that they have their strongest bowlers playing in their Away team. They top the Away team League table and finished 4th in the Home team League table. Leeds have set the example of what a team of their best bowlers playing the most difficult fixtures can lead to. They have raised the bar in that respect.

Leeds were traditionally a weak team in the Inter-District League and dropped out of the League in 2021 after some very indifferent finishing places. They returned in 2023 with a new approach of, I believe using their best bowlers playing in the Away team and immediately won the title. They have won it again this year.

Rather than tinkering with adding new bowlers, wouldn't it be worth trying out a fundamental change to the structure of the teams? Saying that the teams are no longer good enough to win the Inter-District League next year and then starting to try out new bowlers by selecting them for either team lacks guidance from above. The Away team members would be the inevitable first casualties of such an approach. That would, in my opinion, result in a similar outcome with the best bowlers spread over two teams rather than attacking the root of the problem, which is that the Away team hasn't won enough points to support a real title bid. It would be a cop-out to blame all the Away team bowlers for the finishing position of the team this year.

I firmly believe that many of the bowlers in the Away team are more than capable of producing good results on home greens. Rather than discard them as past their 'use by date' and replace them with some new Inter-District recruits will bring the same underperforming outcome. It doesn't always need the best bowlers to win a home match. Whereas the evidence is there that we will never win the title again until the away team is made up of bowlers capable of winning regularly away from home. Why shouldn't that get tried out next season?

This may not be popular with some of the current Home team bowlers who are having a comparatively easy ride with always playing at home. But I am sure that being the good team bowlers that they are they would be willing to accept this change as the best chance of securing the title in future years. There is lots of evidence available to identify the best team bowlers from the Inter-District and the Veterans League statistics and from the knowing eyes of the captains and selectors who come across all these bowlers regularly throughout the season.

Being selected for the Away team should become a recognition of a top bowler and so become much sought after, and I believe would offer the best chance of team success in the future. The alternative is to drift along with two teams doing their own thing and not benefitting from a collective response to the steady deterioration of the Huddersfield Inter-District team.

HUDDERSFIELD HOME TEAM RECORD

HUDDERSFIELD AWAY TEAM RECORD