Pitch Changes and Deadness and Aliveness

Deadness and Aliveness: I second Morris' motion for adopting ball deadness before the first wicked as standard game play. If asked why this makes sense to me, I would cite an existing deadness rule, and consider this a logical extension. An existing deadness rule states "Deadness occurs after a roquet is made and the striker is unable to score his/her wicket. The consequences are that the striker is not allowed to roquet the ball(s) again until scoring the wicket. Once the wicket is scored, the striker becomes 'alive' and is able to roquet the ball(s) again. If a striker roquets a ball he/she is dead on, all balls are replaced to their positions before the shot, and the turn is over. Deadness carries over from turn to turn." (USCA backyard 9-wicket rules) I don't think that it is a reach to extrapolate from this rule the following: Because at the beginning of the game, the striker's ball has not scored a wicket, it is dead. I submit this for discussion at Saturday night's game.

The new Pitch got some changes. Some good, some bad. For the good, we moved the playing area approximately 10 feet north and 1.5 feet west. This gives us better lawn consistency, bypassing the shrub patch on the east side. The downside to this is that in a lack of foresight and knowledge of adopted boundaries, the pitch now has a two-foot post boundary rather than the traditional six-foot. In other words, out-of-bounds behind the post is now two-feet rather than six, effectively promoting further exploitation of the boundary rules. I think we all have a consensus that exploitation of these rules on the sides of the pitch is both fair and sensible. I anticipate some frustration and disagreement about the effective two-foot border at the ends of the pitch. We can take this up also at Saturday night's game.