Colours remain as LDCA moves to one-day cricket

By Aiden Box

THE Leongatha District Association committee last week decided to change the seasons of their B1 and 2 and C1 and 2 grades to exclusively one-day matches including finals, after originally planning to play two-day games throughout the 2022/23 season.

LDCA president John Schelling spoke to the Sentinel-Times recently on how the decision came about.

“It was the logical thing to do for B’s and C’s because they hadn’t really played any cricket at all yet and it’s easier to get someone to play for one week rather than two,” he said. 

“This time we reached out to the clubs for their thoughts, and they almost unanimously came back to us and said they’d like to go back to one day cricket for the season.” 

The change comes after the two grades managed just one fully completed round of cricket in over a month due to rain abandonments, and with more rain on the way switching to a one-day comp was always the safer option.

Schelling discussed the impact the rain and poor conditions have had on the season so far, and whether it will continue to affect the lower grades season. 

“People are keen as mustard before every season comes and then when there’s no activity and it looks like there’s going to be rain, they start dropping off and planning other stuff, they start looking for other options,” he said. 

“Then also we haven’t had much junior cricket yet, so the junior cricketers are finding it hard to commit, we’ve given ourselves an extra week we can use but you can never be confident we’re in South Gippsland so who knows, this is one of those unprecedented seasons, 

“Coming off finally getting a full season in last season we were pretty happy to go back to one and two-day cricket but it just seemed like we’re losing the battle so it was best to revert back to one day only.”

Both divisions of A grade cricket will remain two-day competitions except for the matches in rounds eight, nine and 10 before and after the Christmas break, with finals also returning to the two-day format. 

“Well A grade have been able to get three games under their belt so we’re really only going to miss one or two games and the A graders are still pretty keen to play two-day cricket because it helps with their GCL.

“We want to try and keep the standard of play in A grade as high as we possibly can.

“Over the past couple of seasons, we’ve focused very hard on making sure our premier grade is getting as much cricket as they can, and then we just try and suit the needs of the next grades down.”

The rain as well as other outside factors, has also hugely impacted the availability of umpires around the association as Schelling explained.

“We’ve lost three of four umpires, we had 23 last season, now we only have 16, people move away or retire, the issue now is with over 50s and over 60s cricket is people are continuing their playing career longer rather than umpiring,”

“In a lot of respects, we’re failing to attract younger members to be involved with cricket and it’s something we’re working on much the same as we work on junior and women’s cricket.” 

However, the LDCA president was bullish about the opportunity to take up officiating roles in the district. 

“It’s a terrific way to remain involved, you get enjoyment out of being around the clubs and listening to their chatter.

“It’s also a good way to make some money, a senior umpire in A grade will get $140 for a day so there’s opportunities there to make few bucks for four or five hours of your time.” 

On a positive note, ground availability is near full strength coming into Round 6 of the 2022/23 season. 

“We’re nearly totally right, I think they’re nearly alright to get onto Nerrena, Koonwarra is alright again now, we’re losing Wonthaggi Rec 1, they’re pulling the pitch out of there to play AFLW games which is a bit of a shame, but there’s other grounds we can play at,” he said. 

Unfortunately, Schelling did mention some bad news for Foster.

“Foster have pulled their B2 team out due to a lack of numbers at this stage, so we encourage anyone that is keen down in Foster area to get involved,” he said.  

Action continued last weekend, headlined by Round 2 of the inaugural women’s season.