Club management · Play-Cricket syncGuide · Availability
Cricket availability: WhatsApp polls vs availability apps.
It’s Wednesday night and you need eleven for Saturday. The poll has six ticks, two maybes, a thumbs-up that could mean anything, and someone asking whether it’s home or away. Meanwhile the 2nds captain has run their own poll in another group, and three players have said yes to both.
Why cricket availability is harder than it looks
A five-a-side team can run availability from one message. Cricket can’t:
- Two or three fixtures on one day, all drawing on one pool of players.
- Players move between teams. Who plays for the 2s depends on who the 1s pick first.
- “Available after 2pm.” Partial availability is common, and it matters for a 1pm start.
- Long days. Players need to know early whether to keep the whole Saturday free.
- Late drop-outs. Captains need to know who’s a genuine reserve.
WhatsApp polls: what works and what breaks
WhatsApp is where your players already are, so it’s the obvious first tool, and for a single team it’s often enough. There’s no setup, everyone sees it, and voting is one tap.
It breaks as soon as the club grows:
- One poll per team, per week. Three teams means three polls, and players answer some but not others.
- No shared picture. The 2s captain can’t see who the 1s already have.
- Lost in the chat. Twenty messages of banter later, the poll has scrolled away.
- Reminders hit everyone. “Can everyone vote please” annoys the people who already did.
- No history. At season’s end you can’t see who made themselves available and who didn’t.
- Nuance gets lost. “Yes, but only till 5” becomes a message, not a vote.
How the options compare
| Method | Setup | Several teams | Chases only non-responders | History | Player effort |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| WhatsApp poll | None | Poorly | No | No | One tap, if they find it |
| Shared spreadsheet | Low | Yes | No | Yes | High: open it, find the row, type |
| General team app | Medium | One event per team | Often | Yes | One tap per event |
| Cricket availability app | Medium | Yes: one answer covers the day | Yes | Yes | One tap per match day |
General team apps are a big step up from polls. The difference with a cricket-specific tool is that players answer once per match day and every captain picks from the same list. How MVP Cricket compares with Spond.
How to run a good availability poll
Whatever tool you use, these habits make the biggest difference.
Ask by date, not by team
“Are you free on Saturday 9 May?”, not “Are you available for the 2s?”. Players know whether they’re free; they shouldn’t have to guess which side they’ll be picked for. Captains then pick in order from one list.
Ask early, with a deadline
Open availability at least a week ahead and set a cut-off, such as Tuesday 8pm for a Saturday game, so selection can happen on Wednesday.
Let players answer weeks ahead
Holidays and weddings are known months in advance. A player who marks them early saves the captain a message.
Three answers and a note
Available, maybe, not available, plus a note for “after 2pm” or “can’t drive”. A maybe is useful information; forcing yes or no means more late drop-outs.
Chase only the silent
Never remind the whole group. Nudge only the players who haven’t answered, and only once.
Close the loop
Tell every player whether they were picked, including those who weren’t. Players who answer and never hear back stop answering.
The real problem: getting players to open it
The poll isn’t the hard part. Getting players to open it is, and players open things they care about: their own scores, and where they stand against their mates. At Brookweald, a public MVP leaderboard built from the club’s Play-Cricket scorecards became the thing players checked after every game. Because they were already in the app for their points, answering for next Saturday was one more tap, not another message to ignore.
“Once players were checking their MVP points after every game, they were already in the app, and availability, selection and paying their fees stopped being a chase.”
Rob Harvey · Secretary and Treasurer, Brookweald CC
How MVP Cricket handles availability
- One tap per match day. A single answer covers every fixture that day.
- Available, maybe or not available, plus a note for the captain.
- One picture for every captain. The 1s, 2s and Sunday captains all pick from the same list.
- Per-match overrides. A captain can set a player’s status for one match without touching their answer for the day.
- Chase only the silent. Nudges go only to players who haven’t answered, and never twice.
- Straight into selection. Answers feed the selection screen, and selected players are notified.
There’s nothing to download from an app store: it installs to the home screen from the browser, with sign-in by email code. Availability is on the Club plan, £9.99 a month or £99 a year; the leaderboard is free forever. For the rest of the week’s admin, see how to run a village cricket club.
Questions captains ask
Are WhatsApp polls good for cricket availability?
For a single team, they’re fine. Once a club runs two or more teams on the same day they struggle: each team needs its own poll, captains can’t see a shared picture, and reminders go to everyone rather than just the players who haven’t answered.
When should captains send out the availability poll?
At least a week before the match, with a clear deadline two or three days before it. That leaves time to select, publish the side and find replacements.
How do you get cricket players to reply to availability?
Ask by date rather than by team, make answering one tap, remind only the players who haven’t replied, always tell players whether they were picked, and give them a reason to open the club app every week.
Do players need to download an app to give availability?
Not with MVP Cricket. It installs to the home screen from the browser, players sign in with an email and a six-digit code, and installing it turns on push notifications for reminders and selection.
One tap per match day, one list for every captain. Start free with the leaderboard, add availability on Club.