A new play park has opened today near to my house.

When this was planned a 'ball catching net' was installed as there is a cricket pitch next to it.

However, since the net was put up it has been cleared at least twice that I know of - I think it's become a bit of a challenge!

Does anyone have any thoughts on this?

The council are 'considering' putting some signs up to warn parents that balls may clear the fence during matches. Is this enough?

For me the fence need to be raised...

Its a great little park and my kids loved it today but I will be keeping them off it during matches.

Ian, I would suggest that both your comments are unfair and deliberately provocative.

In the first instance, lightning strikes cannot be predicted or controlled, which is not true of a game of cricket.

Secondly, if a child was playing in a park and seriously injured by a cricket ball that came over the fence, the Personal injury lawyers would have a field day if they were told that balls clearing the fence was a regular and evidently foreseeable occurrence.

And I wouldn't want kids of mine to be hurt either.

However, proportionality is the key.

So often, respondents here use a little knowledge to perceive risks that are generally overstated and often more apparent than real. They go on, like the proverbial dog at a bone, to seek support in their sometimes blinkered view that everything must change before the world collapses around their feet.

In the first instance, that might have been the case here, hence my question. Now, in response to that question, we are teasing out a few additional facts that were not presented initially. Perhaps eventually the full facts will become clear and at that point proportionality can be adjusted accordingly.

Hi

If it is unsafe for children to play outside of a cricket ground, where not all the balls are caught by a protective net, how much more unsafe would it be for children to go inside a cricket ground to watch a cricket match?

Should we ban children from watching cricket?

Ian

I play cricket on a regular basis, in my 35yrs playing, I have never known a spectator (paying attention or not) to get hit by the ball.

If you assume an adult is 1.8m tall and 0.9m wide then the 'target' is 1.62m^2.

In a 40over innings (240 deliveries), I would say no more than 10-15% (36balls) of balls are hit to the boundary.

I would further say that only 'high' boundary balls are dangerous -6's and 'one bounce 4's' - maybe 10 balls times per 40 overs.

So I would suggest hitting someone is just over a 4% risk - and that assumes the complete boundary has people standing shoulder to shoulder.

So factor in the further chance of hitting any 1 individual is pretty small

Putting catch nets around a ground is rarely done, usually only when there is an adjacent busy road to a cricket ground.

Unreasonable request, a club will have public liability insurance for such events

It's nice to see you are nice and relaxed after your long weekend off :)
(However, I have to say, I can't disagree to your argument, even if it perhaps doesn't apply to this thread!)

Not damned lies and statistics at all, as an experienced cricket player, just trying to quantify the likelihood of a spectator getting hit by the ball.

As Phil Grace says - a risk assessment is required. For that some objective measure/knowledge of the game is required.

Rather than basing the risk assessment on nothing more than 'what if' scenarios.

I could show a few cricket grounds in the area that I play, with childrens play areas areas next to the ground - that don't specifically have ball catching nets.

So what do you do about groups of kids who attend games with parents who form groups around the pitch and play amongest themselves - but who aren't playing in a dedicated childrens play area?

Shall we put a high fence all the way around the boundary or have an exclusion zone, say for 150m from the main batting square (this will vary depending which part of the batting square is being played on). WHich is not practical from the viewing point of view or land availability point of view for many grounds.

The risk also depends upon the relative position of the play area and the batting wicket - some directions are more likely to have the ball hit in a paticular direction.



As for the silly comment about machine guarding - that is a legal requirements, installing catch nets isn't.

My comment about insurance - insurance policies/companies take up the residual risk, once reasonable measures have been taken.

All seems to me another risk averse approach to modern life and rather OTT.

What about pedestrians walking along a footpath and a car mounts the footpath and kills someone - a foreseeable risk - do we ban cars? Put fences along ALL footpaths next to roads?

People get killed this way - so its foreseeable. People getting killed by cricket balls? I can think of 1 example - an umpire got hit 2-3ys ago and died, by a ball being thrown in from the field.

But if you don't know in which direction any paticular hit of the ball is going to go - isn't every spectator or other people nearby entitled to protection from being hit by the ball?

In which case options are limited

1. Stop playing cricket (remove the hazard)
2. Move all spectators and others who might be hit by the ball to an agreed safe distance
3. Provide physical protection for all i.e. a fence around the ground
4. Play with a soft ball

You still haven't provided a solution for the other scenario I have suggested - a group of children gathered by the side of the pitch, playing together or having a picnic etc. They are just as likely to get hit by the ball as the kids in the dedicated play park.

You say I'm talking nonsense - no I am just describing typical childrens activities at your normal community cricket club on a pleasant sunny afternoon. Mums and dads having a quiet drink while chatting to friends etc - not closely supervising children (and why should they?)

We are trying to encourage kids to take part in sport - that includes watching/attending, so hopefully they will go on to take part when older. Like most sports there is some risk of injury, whether playing or watching.

Thanks for the responses but as Alan says the thread has deviated away from my original point -

That being that the park has been constructed in a position next to a cricket pitch.

If we are being technical it's in line with the square and subject to a good straight drive.

Its well documented that historically balls often clear the adjacent hedge as as such it was a condition of the planning application that a ball catching net was installed.

Since the net has been installed it has been cleared at least twice that I am aware of.

So, having deemed the risk significant enough to install the net in the first place but having it then proven that it is insufficient what control measures would contributors suggest?

I am not suggesting that this is, in any way, a responsibility of the Cricket Club but the local council who installed it.

Do nothing - the kids are at no greater risk than any other group around the ground

See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miller_v_Jackson

I would say in the above example that this was/is a particularly small cricket gound (a least in the direction of the Millers garden - 48m to the house, 30m to the garden.)

Even given that only 6 out of 13326 deliveries went into the garden, 0.045% (1 in 2222) deliveries - assuming a typical season. So to actually hit someone as well will be a an even smaller risk.

I would have thought that these are typical figures for balls bowled for a typical club.

So the risk is pretty small in the original posters question, I would say.

The Law is an .....