A miked up Warren Hegg compered proceedings, including a video link with the RSPG vice-chair Shashwat Goenka – now the proud owner of a third cricket franchise alongside Lucknow Super Giants and Durban Super Giants – and who expressed a desire for the Manchester Super Giants Originals to one day rival City and United.
Rochana Jayasinghe discussed the changing language of cricket: how pursed-lip fielding restrictions have become the bombastic power play, how terminology has become de-sexed (from batsman to batter), the invention of new words to describe new shots – the scoop, the helicopter, the switch hit, and with an eye to the future, the increasing use of AI and algorithmic language.
But here he was focusing on cricket – specifically the burgeoning world of the T10, a format that isn’t recognised by the ICC and seems to be a yahooing wild west, where players fly in and out with abandon, pay is often hit and miss, and where cricketers inexplicably underperform.
There was also a cracking talk on cricket’s use of animation over the years from Loughborough University’s Paul Wells, who traced its development from Arthur Melbourne Cooper’s 1899 film of matchstick men batting, to the ball tracking seen today.
Hina Shafi is a year into her PhD on the ethnic profile of the ECB’s girls talent pathway and women’s Super League (with some of her funding coming from the ECB, SACA, ACE and Take Her Lead.)
