IT is highly likely only limited overs cricket will be played in the Sunraysia Cricket Association (SCA) this year at least as plans continue for a coronavirus-affected 2020-21 season.
SCA president Andrew Farlie, who was re-elected for a second term on Monday night, was hopeful the season’s start would not be delayed too long as regional Victoria sits under Stage 3 restrictions until at least September 13 and the New South Wales border remains closed.
“We’re still hopeful of an early October start, there’s a few things that are going to affect that with the Stage 3 restrictions needing to finish as well as the issues around the NSW border restrictions,” Farlie said.
“Then we’ve got to have all the clubs and the SCA to have their COVID-19 plans in place, so with all of that, the shortened versions of the game (Twenty20 and one-day matches) are more likely to happen early on in the season, the only real possibility of two-day cricket we have at the moment is if we play Saturday-Sundays.
Farlie said two-day cricket could be severely affected by any positive coronavirus case being recorded within a team midway through a match which would result in players needing to go into isolation and compromising not only the match in progress but the start of the next round.
“It affects the second day of the match and potentially the following week as well,” he said.
“There’s a few issues around the two-day game, there is possibility you could alleviate that with Saturday-Sunday but how happy clubs would be around playing Saturday-Sunday? I’m not too sure.”
The association’s two New South Wales-based clubs – Coomealla Wentworth and Workers Gol Gol – are also in limbo due to the border restrictions.
“There’s even mention of the possibility NSW-based clubs in Vic competitions form their own competition, but that’s obviously going to be a fair bit of travel involved if you’ve got Coomealla Wentworth playing Gunbower in a match,” Farlie said.
“There’s a few different things we are talking about, we’ve got another meeting (tonight) across the state to talk about different scenarios.”
“It’s not just the clubs themselves, it’s the cross-border players, if we don’t have Coomealla and Gol Gol playing do we then allow permits for players to change clubs if they are Victorian-based players to play for a Victorian club for the first half of the season or until the borders open?”
Along with Farlie being re-elected on Monday night, Mat Hunt has taken on the vice-presidency.
Long-time board member Mick Thomson is continuing while four new additions to the SCA board include Peter Shadwick, Natasha Anstee, Richie Wyld and Brendan Notman.
Three more positions are to be announced by the end of the month.
