Senior English scorer visits PCB for a scoring techniques workshop

Vic Isaacs and scoring workshop members Photo © CricInfo

A half-day scoring techniques workshop was held at the PCB offices in Gaddafi Stadium, Lahore on Mar 15, 2002. CricInfo had arranged a visit by Vic Isaacs of Hampshire County Cricket Club to give a lecture based on his 28 years of cricket scoring experience in England and abroad.

The PCB had invited several of their scorers to attend this multi-media lecture and it was a pleasant surprise that some of the delegates to the Asian Cricket Council (ACC) Administrators Conference from Bangladesh and the Maldives took some time out to join in.

Vic's talk started off with a short biography. He spoke of his experience of starting as a cricket scorer whilst in the Army, having not obtained the necessary skills to become a player, and joining the first-class county Hampshire in 1975.

Zakir Khan PCB GM Ops and Vic Isaacs Photo © CricInfo

The talk then delved into a discussion of the Cricket Laws relating to scorers and umpires. He explained how these have evolved and discussed in detail the jobs of the scorers in complying with the laws. He illustrated this with anecdotes from past experience. A discussion of the signals and acknowledgement took place as well as the current techniques being employed. Emphasis was placed on the importance of modern scorers and how important they had become to the smooth running of cricket matches, and the need for rapport between them and the other officials at the match. There were lots of discussions amongst the participants.

Vic then stressed that scorers should be neat and accurate with their books, have total concentration of the task in hand, not let outside sources disturb them. And added the important fact was they should enjoy the task. "A happy scorer was a good scorer".

The other main topic of focus was the Duckworth/Lewis method to calculate the playing conditions for a rain affected one-day match. A general discussion was held over the manual operation of the D/L Method, and how after trials and tribulations with other ideas, the two gentlemen Messrs. Duckworth and Lewis, both senior mathematicians, got together. A demonstration of the method was given using the D/L computer program (CODA) and illustrated with examples. Some examples were also fed into the program from current Pakistan domestic rain-affected one-day games to check the decisions made by the officials. He placed emphasis on the fact that each scorer should read and understand the method for himself and do some sample calculations manually too.

Vic was thanked for coming to talk to the scorers and was presented by Col. Nur Manager, Domestic cricket, with a PCB scorers workshop bag and the PCB Tie.

Members of the scoring workshop Photo © CricInfo

A subsequent discussion with PCB officials took place. It was to be hoped that the scorers in Pakistan would soon be able to use computers, which would also help in calculations of the D/L method and logically move towards scoring too, as is the practice in England. Moreover, computers would also lead to accuracy on statistics and in making sure of consistency in player names.

The attendees appreciated the session and meetings followed with the GM Cricket Operations, Zakir Khan and Manager Domestic Cricket, Nuruddin Khawaja of the Pakistan Cricket Board.

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