Death of a cricket club

I believe I'm seeing the demise of our cricket club. For the 2nd week in succession I'm playing in the 2nd XI as are a number of other 4th and 3rd XI players. The 4th XI game has been cancelled and the remaining 4th XI players are in the 3rd XI, you know the score if you play cricket. 

Last year both the 1st and 2nd XI had bad seasons and over the winter a lot of the  players have chosen to stop playing or play far fewer games citing reasons such as work and family commitments. To be fair, they are all of that age - late 20's early 30's with possibly young families and Brexit breathing down their necks threatening screw everything up. It seems to be triggering a domino effect, as players leave others are saying things like... "Well if my mates are not playing, the games no longer the same, It's no longer a laugh". 

But it gets worse...

So tomorrow, the team I'm in, which is probably devoid of regular 2nd XI players will come up against a team more than likely full of 20 and 30 year old's, with perhaps an odd older bloke in his 40's and young kid being bloodied who has potential for the future. We've got three of the 'Young Kid' types, including my son Joe, but the rest of us are 4th and 3rd XI players and the likelihood is that it's going to be tough.

I'm up for it, I'll pay my £15 and a fiver for Joe. I'll have invested £20 in the match, plus any other costs incurred, this week it's not a lot, as it at home. But what I don't want to hear is the same crap that I heard last week...

"If we win the toss, we'll bat and get it over and done with and be home before tea, no-one wants to be chasing leather all day".

Er, I think you'll find some people do. I haven't paid £20 + to purposely play a truncated game where the captain and other key players in the team have given up before a ball is bowled and want to get it over and done with. I want my £20 worth. I want the opportunity to bowl against good batsmen and try and figure a way of getting them out. Yeah it may be a disaster and I might go for a lot of runs, but then again me or one of the bowlers might pull off a miracle? Perhaps the batsmen can see it as a challenge to try and chase or maybe even play for a draw?

If this is going to be the pattern for the whole summer, with this attitude and the same strategy of getting the game over and done with, I don't want to be playing and I'll probably go looking for another team along with Joe. I don't understand why if you like cricket and want to play the game, you would look to curtail the game and not look to face up to the challenge of fielding for the full innings against good players or as a batsman look to pull off a miracle with the bat in a miracle chase?