BATHURST'S representative cricketers best get prepared for new rivalries.
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Cricket in the mid-west looks set for a renascence, with a six-team first grade competition and a representative side with enough quality to enter the Western Zone Premier League in the works for 2019-20.
Mudgee and Gulgong associations will join forces this summer in a bid to help reinvigorate the sport in the region.
Two teams have already confirmed their entry into the new 40-overs-a-side mid-west premiership, with the Centennial Hotel Vikings and the Mudgee-based Tiges ushering in the new dawn.
The Gulgong District Cricket Association helped launch the new competition and treasurer Jeff Rayner says as many as seven teams could take part in the inaugural title race.
Rayner expects two teams from Mudgee, two from Gulgong, a strong Coolah side and potentially the Goolma Polar Bears as well, as a minimum.
We put a few things down on paper and, basically, we just want to reinvigorate the sport here.
- Gulgong treasurer Jeff Rayner.
He said interest from Wellington has "fallen away".
However, a WZPL side that adopts the mid-west banner was a distinct possibility following positive discussions at the last meeting, driven by Western Zone selector Neil Doherty and former Zone gun Will Lindsay.
Mudgee cricket ran a six-side reserve grade competition last summer following the dissolving of its first division premiership - a title race with just three sides - at the end of in 2017-18 season.
While Rayner admits the Gulgong competition has essentially been "bush cricket" for a long time now.
"Not that there's anything wrong with that ... but it has been going backwards a bit," Rayner said, the mid-west competition believed to be the first time Mudgee and Gulgong has joined to play club cricket.
"From a Gulgong point of view, mining rosters mucked it up a bit and shifts starting Sunday afternoon when we're a Sunday-run competition, it became difficult.
"There's always been a bit of talk about Mudgee and Gulgong combining but that's all it's ever been, talk.
"We put a few things down on paper and, basically, we just want to reinvigorate the sport here."
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Rayner said the Mudgee second division sides initially knocked back the proposal but that was a blessing in disguise and now, with some returning players likely to fill the two Mudgee sides, the quality of cricket will be reasonably high, too.
Rayner said the idea behind the concept is to give young players in the region a competition to aspire to be part of.
"Just because we've started a new comp it doesn't make everyone Don Bradman ... but we've got to start somewhere to keep players here," he said.
"This seems to have spiced it up a bit. It's getting people keen again by offering them something new. I can only hope it'll last."
The new competition will offer 40-over cricket with a competition break over the Christmas and new year period where a Twenty20 competition will be run. The Sheffield Shield competition takes a similar break to allow the Big Bash to be run.
Rayner also said some of the 40-over games will likely be day-nighters, with lights at Mudgee and Coolah and, soon to be, at Gulgong.
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Nick McGrath
Editor, Central Western Daily
Editor, Central Western Daily
