With the season now only days away, the final pieces in the OCC jigsaw are being put together. The rest of the regulations will be issued shortly (Divisions 1-4, and all cup regulations), so the only thing left is to confirm the methods available for submission of match information.
After the major changes at the beginning of last year, the changes for 2012 are minimal. The move to computer scorecard submission was massively successful and my thanks go out to the dozens of people across the province who helped with making it all work. Hopefully we can keep on improving this year.
The main method of submitting scorecards, through Cricket Statz, remains completely unchanged. If you are new to this process, or simply need a reminder, the guide to submitting a match scorecard can be viewed on the website here. All competitive matches in the OCC must be submitted in this way (League, Cup and T20 cup matches), with the home team always having to submit
All matches that are covered by official Leinster Cricket Umpire and Scorers Association umpires must also have grading reports submitted by both home and away teams. The address for this site is at http://www.leinstercricketumpiresscorers.net:8080/umpires/spring. This must be completed by Tuesday night.
There is a subtle change in the deadline for the submission of all match information this year. All matches must be submitted by Tuesday night (including umpires grading reports). The OCC will be monitoring the starrings of each club every week, removing those who haven't played in the previous four weeks. This will be conducted every Wednesday. If a card is not submitted by Tuesday night, players may have to be removed from starrings, despite them appearing on late scorecards. It is in club's interest to submit on time - every week.
The LCU is also in the preliminary stages of developing a relationship with Total Cricket Scorer. A full article on the current situation can be read here. After a great deal of research last year, Total Cricket Scorer has been found to be best suited to the LCU's needs, and as such we are recommending it to be used by as many teams as possible.
All forms of Total Cricket Scorer can export match details to the OCC in the correct format (Cricket Statz - .mxp file) - any other format is unfortunately useless to us in getting information on to the website. We are recommending that a traditional scorebook should also be used by at least one scorer - this will be reviewed as time goes by.
Finally, the OCC have attempted to standardise the points penalties that are handed out to teams for late submission of cards and grading reports. Any team that is late on more than two occasions in a rolling twelve month period will be deducted 5 points. This means that warnings that were issued in 2011 will still be in affect for 2012. However, should a team be in danger of being penalised, they will be informed that they must submit quickly to avoid a penalty. The aim is get through the season without any clubs being penalised!