Cricket association assessing restructure options, player points system

The league is exploring options for a promotion-relegation model in its its top division, with a potential solution a 16-team division one competition split into two leagues of eight teams.

One league would be a 'premier' league and the other a division one competition, with one team promoted and relegated between the two each season.

Clubs provided feedback on the model, how and when it could be implemented, as well as suggesting other ways the restructure could look, such as a conference system.

There were 12 teams in the 2023-24 division one competition.

"It was really positive to catch up with representatives from clubs and just have a bit of a chat around what it will look like," WDCA general manager Nick Ansell said.

"We don't necessarily profess to be the experts in trying to do stuff. Everyone has their own ideas on what they want the re-structure to look like. This has come from a place of identifying the current structure of the competition probably isn't servicing all the needs and meeting the needs of as many clubs as it probably could."

Ansell said there were benefits and negatives to a promotion-relegation system.

"The advantages for promotion/relegation is they give clubs that have their top side in division two a really clear pathway into playing top grade cricket," he said.

"And maybe that doesn't necessarily have to be in a hard and fast promotion-relegation way, that's probably something that the subcommittee will have to talk about and work through. It's just about having that conversation with them because for them at the moment there's a whole lot of different things where it's difficult for them to recruit and really prop themselves up to contend for that top grade.

"From a neutral point of view it adds certainly a lot of intrigue but there's downsides to it as well and that is if you're looking to get to eight or 10 teams or whatever it is, inevitably someone or some club is likely to have to drop back a grade.

"I think most people would agree it's never going to be completely fair. That's the task of the subcommittee group at the moment, they're trying to deliver an outcome that services the vast majority of clubs."

Ansell said the next step would be for the subcommittee to wade through all the options and pick the "best option for cricket for the long term".

He highlighted that participation and high-level cricket opportunities were at the forefront of the association's strategy.

"Participation is certainly one element of it, you want people to be playing, loving and enjoying the sport at the level but there's also still a place for playing high-level cricket and giving young players the opportunity to play in a strong competition and maybe go off and play premier cricket or whatever it may be," he said.

The introduction of a player points system to ensure fairness across the competition was also discussed at the meeting.

Similar to local football, clubs would be allotted a certain amount of points each game, with players' individual worth dependant on factors such as their experience, how many years they have been with a club and where they played their juniors.

"That seemed to be relatively pretty favourable," Ansell said of introducing a player points model.

"Obviously the player movement stuff as well, it's a really difficult one to balance because you want to encourage clubs to bring talented players to the association, we want the standard to be as high as possible but at the same time as well you also want your association to be a level playing field.

"Clubs maybe shouldn't be super disadvantaged if they're not a financial club.

"I think the association is fully aware of the fact money is a part of sport. It's a difficult one to wrangle when you're an association playing country cricket because we don't have an AFL integrity unit that can manage contracts and clubs are volunteer run.

"The devil's going to be in the detail with the points system it's going to be that that'll be reviewed and tightened and made to be pretty clear and there'll probably be I'd imagine a pretty soft introduction into that."