Cricket groups across North-East Victoria and Southern New South Wales say they are excited about the prospect of a bumper local season with training numbers up, competitions growing, and a number of key events for the sport taking place across the region.
Cricket Albury-Wodonga said, ahead of the new season in October, there had been a phenomenal number of players visiting the local cricket hub over the past three months.
Chairperson Michael Erdeljac said the number of new faces training at the hub this early in the preseason was particularly noteworthy.
"[There are] clubs that are fronting up in June, July and August, that you've never seen before, training with 10, 20, 30, 40 people which they've never had at training before at this time of the year," he said.
"We are assuming that clubs will be as strong, if not stronger than they were last year."
Women's and junior numbers up
Mr Erdeljac said they were looking to have between 30 to 40 under 12 teams in their Friday night competition this season — around a 30 per cent increase from the last.
He said they were also looking at a 20 per cent increase across the rest of their junior competitions.
"Which is very scary because we never had that before. The intake and uptake are quite substantial," he said.
Interest in the local women's competition was also looking very good ahead of the coming season.
Cricket Albury-Wodonga's Female Development Officer, Maddy Howard, said all of the players from last year's inaugural competition were returning.
"Last year we had about 32 open age players and about 10 under 13s. This year we've got probably about 15 under 15s and nearly 45 open age," she said.
"The season starts in October, so to get that amount already is pretty good."
Excitement about the region's major cricket events
Cricket groups across the region said the return of a 'normal' season — one not impacted by COVID restrictions — was helping to build anticipation for local competitions and providing welcome developments around overseas imports and the return of traditional formats.
But the groups said they were also paying close attention to how their competitions could benefit from a number of major cricket events announced for the region, including a mini T20 competition bringing international sides and domestic academy teams to Wangaratta in early October.
Wangaratta and District Cricket Association Secretary Wayne Cooper said the event was very exciting for the region.
"The timing of it in early October will be a great promotion for cricket in general right across the north-east of Victoria," he said
"Hopefully leading to more junior players being involved at each club."
Mr Erdeljac said he was also excited about the region hosting a Second XI Shield game between New South Wales and Tasmania in October.
But he said the New Year’s Eve clash between BBL teams Sydney Thunder and Hobart Hurricanes at Lavington Sports Ground was the big one to watch.
"That's the game Cricket-Albury Wodonga has put a lot of time and effort into to get up and running," he said.
"I'm hoping to get somewhere between 8,000 to 12,000 people on a Saturday afternoon at Lavington to a game of cricket. Now that would just be fantastic for everybody."
Wet spring the only dampener
The Bureau of Meteorology recently predicted a strong chance of above-average rainfall for a majority of the country's east during spring.
Mr Cooper said he was hoping more sunny days would take place before the season's start so that their grounds could dry out and curators could get onto them.
"I'm sure they will come up with a contingency plan if we can't get onto some of the turf wickets," he said.
"If there's one or two particular grounds that can't start on time those clubs might get away games first up and stuff like that."
