It’s that time of year again! First pre-season session out the way last night, good to feel leather on willow again and roll the arm over. If anyone is keen on a hit or looking to change clubs and live in the Essendon area, PM me. I’m now Club Secretary at Aberfeldie Park, which I now know is not all beer and skittles. We are expanding to 4 senior teams now and will also have juniors for the first time in around 20-odd years, so the more numbers we have the better. PM me if you’re keen!
How’s everyone else tracking? Started pre-season yet?
Lower your standards down to Sunday B Grade Mercantile Cricket level, play on turf, be only of the only guy at the club to have orthodox technique, better Bradman’s average, win us a third flag off your own bat and open the bowling too, become an instant club legend, win the B&F and then never have to buy a beer again in the company of any Thornbury Turf Stroker yobbo.
Hahaha a cross-town rival, albeit in a different comp! You blokes play out at Fairbairn Park? We’re looking at organising a scratch match before the season commences. There are 8 ovals (?) there, do you think we’ll have any issues of them all being occupied on a weekend before Round 1? I know they play LMS T20 cricket in the winter months…
Few of the grounds down Fairbairn are still being used for soccer, so some pitches are still covered.
They use 1-2 grounds for the LMS T20 comp.
There are a few grounds available though. We have 2 practice matches booked down there ourselves during September. Best thing to do is go via the Moonee Ponds council and try n book a ground - need their permission.
Junior numbers seem increasingly to be a worry. I know the RDCA have changed the U12 format to 9 players per fielding side. Partly -supposedly - to keep the kids more involved whilst bowling/fielding and allow more scoring, but i wonder if clubs are also struggling to field full teams as well.
Many comps across Australia are going that way. Is been driven by CA and they want to standardise it across the country and associations who bring in the new formats get preferential treatment. We have just implemented it here this year and some of the grants and funding we have got from CA and SACA are great
I’ve done the Level 1 coaching and speaking to a coach from Montmorency CC, they’ve done away with weekend junior Cricket altogether. They only have Wednesday and Friday night Cricket, the main reason being that most kids play Saturday morning basketball. That’s not good to hear. Also some of the coaching philosophies, pretty much everything we went through was attacking shots, basically no respect played to defence. They are clearly worried that kids will find Cricket “boring”.
Anyway, we didn’t play yesterday, the association called the round off due to not enough grounds being ready. Highly doubt ours will be right next week either…
Hopefully I’ll be playing against Gideon Haigh again. He’s not a bad bloke off the field but doesn’t mind ripping into team mates and bowls some of the best pies I’ve ever faced.
Love sledging him as that guy from tele who was in the D Generation “Have a go at it Tony Martin!”
Cricket Albury Wodonga. He’s signed for Lavington.
We had Chris Sole (Scotland International) in the comp last year, and our own side this year will contain Dilhara Lokuhettige (Former Sri Lankan international) and Sahib Malhotra (Delhi Daredevils and India U/19).
I loved his book about South Yarra CC called The Vincibles. Having spent 30 odd years at a club in the same comp, it resonated heaps.
It was the year of the death of one of their stalwarts, and also the time when twin brothers from the club were writing that cricket score recording app that seems to be used by lots of associations. ResultsVault?
He came to our club’s centenary do…about three years before the club folded.
How many senior comps are forcing Keepers to wear helmets while up to the stumps? I’ve just moved up to Bendigo and they have it here. I couldn’t be more ■■■■■■ off.
