Warrnambool and District Cricket Association has settled on the format of its post-Christmas fixture after six of the first seven rounds were washed-out
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At Monday night's board meeting - following weeks of discussion with clubs and stakeholders - the association decided to scrap two-day matches for the season. All matches after Christmas will be played as one-day, 45-over games, with red balls to be used and whites to be worn.
The sole two-day match scheduled before Christmas had already been switched to two 45-over one-day games. All rules and restrictions will be the same as normal 45-over games.
WDCA general manager Nick Ansell said the association had "opted for a more simple approach".
"Listening to a lot of feedback of the clubs and also the umpires the decision was to just keep it as simple as possible really for everyone," he said.
"It's hard to introduce wholesale changes, things like bonus points and all the rest of it, at a mid-season point.
"From the meeting the other night there were some awesome ideas thrown around. Really, really good ideas that are important and they definitely are not discounted and they'll probably be back on the table again."
Ansell said "above all else clubs were just keen to get some red-ball cricket in".
"So it's good to be able to facilitate that a little bit hopefully, the simplicity of the whole thing everyone knows where they stand," he said.
The general manager said the association would host an extended finals format for all four senior grades, after clubs were keen to have more teams play finals. He said the format details would be finalised in the next week or so.
"We're not 100 per cent sure what that looks like but there's a couple of options we're weighing up," he said. "Whether or not that's six teams or eight teams."
It was also decided at the meeting clubs would only play one match each weekend (after Christmas), with as much Saturday cricket to be played as possible.
Division three and four games will remain on Sundays until turf pitches are available for the top grades.
"It looks like we've got another couple of weeks before we can get on turf so we're hoping the last Saturday of November we'll be able to get on," Ansell said.
Matt Hughes
Matt is a sports journalist at The Standard.
Matt is a sports journalist at The Standard.
