This weekend, on September 23, the annual Bowning Sevens cricket tournament will take place once again.
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This will be the competition’s sixth edition, and organiser Andrew Swaffield believes that they are starting to get the formula for the tournament just right.
“We’ve tinkered with the format over a number of years,” Swaffield said.
“We had two-day events, and we had one-day events, we grew out to three grounds, and we brought it back to two.
“So we’ve tinkered with the format, but we feel like we’ve got it pretty streamlined now.”
This year’s format will follow the same basic rules as always; that is, seven players per team, six overs per innings, and roughly forty minutes per match.
The bowlers are also limited to one over per match, and required to keep their run-ups to four metres or under.
This is all in the name of expedience – the matches must be kept to a rough average of forty minutes or less in order to fit a whole tournament into a day.
The idea of the Sevens tournament is akin to a Big Bash League on fast-forward, with all the excitement and adrenalin rushes of T20 cricket but to an even more unreasonably aggressive level.
The fact that the tournament is completed in a day suits both players and spectators, who can experience the entire storyline without having to commit to several days worth of cricket.
“Come semi-final time, in the afternoon, we get a fair few locals down there,” Swaffield said.
“All the players sort of converge on the one oval.”
This year, as opposed to recent years, there will only be one oval available for the tournament, but Swaffield is sure that the quality of cricket will remain unchanged from previous, more populous editions.
The day will start at roughly 8:30 in the morning, with matches continuing until the grand final, which Swaffield says is usually at 4:30 in the afternoon.