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By Bob Fromer
Clearwater, Florida, USA: 23 July – It’s been another day of rain in and around the Clearwater area, all scrimmage games have been cancelled, and a large number of teams – including the GB Under-19 Women – will start the WBSC Junior Women’s World Championship tomorrow with unanswered questions.
The GB Team came to Florida with five scrimmage games scheduled, and for a variety of reasons – but mostly the weather – will have played a little less than two of them. Today’s scheduled game against defending champion Japan was the latest casualty, wiped out by rain and flooded fields.
For some teams, losing a few scrimmage games before a major tournament would be an inconvenience. But for a British team, where players come from the UK and around the world, and do not get to train and play together on a regular basis, the problem is more acute.
Head Coach Rachael Watkeys and her staff simply haven’t had a chance to see enough of the players play under game conditions and at different positions. So the team will face two crucial games against Korea and China tomorrow, when the tournament starts in earnest, with the coaches still uncertain about what their strongest team might be, or the best team to cope with these opponents.
And with an unforgiving format in which only two of the six teams in Britain’s first round pool will be able to advance to Championship playoffs, there is almost no margin for error.
Grumbling
While the weather is under no one’s control, there was a lot of grumbling at this morning’s Technical Meeting about organisational chaos, lack of information, and the lack of enthusiasm organisers have shown for helping teams reclaim scrimmage games and training sessions affected by weather.
In part, this is because many of these same organisers were heavily engaged until the end of Saturday running two National Championship tournaments for American 16U and 18U travel ball teams at the same facility where the Junior World Championship will take place.
The GB Juniors played Korea at the 2013 Junior World Championship in Brampton, Ontario, Canada, and they played China in the 2015 Junior World Championship in Oklahoma City, and on each occasion lost by a single run.
So these will be competitive games that GB will have a chance to win – and will probably need to win to advance from this group, with Canada and Mexico still to play, along with Ireland.
So tomorrow will be an interesting day – weather permitting! – and the GB coaches will have to hope that the players will be mentally ready and that the line-up decisions they make will turn out for the best.