THE Nyah District Cricket Club will remain the only club in Swan Hill & District Cricket Club history to win three A Grade titles in a single season, after clubs voted to scrap the McDonald’s T20 competition for the upcoming season.
Since its inception in 2018-19, the McDonald’s T20 competition has taken on many guises, with round robin competitions and full fixtures, double-header weekends and day-night grand finals becoming a staple of the tournament.
Clubs voted to remove the T20 format from the A Grade fixture at the SHDCA’s annual general meeting last week, with the addition of former Northern District clubs in recent seasons creating a cramped schedule that required an overhaul according to association president Russell Bott.
“It’s a pretty big competition these days, there’s 340 positions for adult cricketers each weekend in our association and despite people saying cricket as a sport is dying, the metrics don’t indicate that,” Bott told The Guardian.
“T20 might be the newest format, but the A Grade fixture was just too cramped and something had to change.
“Cricket’s changed over the years; they’ve modified their rules, changed formats and adapted to better suit modern times and the abolition of two-day cricket several years ago is a good example of that.
“I was a bit surprised that the clubs voted to dump T20s in saying, but it’s a younger person’s game because it’s pretty intense and I think that’s reason why the double headers probably never worked.
“It’s not just 80 overs a day, but it’s 80 overs of pretty intense cricket — every ball is an event in T20 and you’re on the move every ball and there’s no respite.
“There was a small push to bring two-day cricket back as well but it doesn’t surprise me that didn’t have much support, although we are still playing a variation of longer format cricket.”
That variation will also undergo a change this season, with 50-over an innings with no fielding or bowling restrictions set to be changed to 45-overs per side.
While the traditional whites and red balls will remain, along with no fielding restrictions, there will be a limit of 12 overs per bowler, meaning each team will need to use a minimum of four bowlers over a 45-over innings.
The 40-over one-day version will remain in its current Kookaburra Cup format.
Among the other changes to occur this season will an adjustment to junior age groups, with last year’s under 13s and under 16s age limits lifted to under 14s and under 17s, with batters in the under 17s now required to retire after 60 balls faced instead of after 75 runs scored.
The other big change will be around player safety, with an adjustment to the SHDCA heat rule, with games to be called off if the temperature is forecast to be 40 degrees or above.
“I think that change was inevitable and the only weekend we would have missed through if the new heat changes would have been in last year would have been the grand final,” Bott said.
“We need to make sure that we’re looking after our juniors’ health and their best interests, especially with afternoon cricket.
“I honestly feel one of the reasons why we beat Sunraysia at junior country week last year was because a lot of our kids are getting exposure to playing against adults at a younger age in the afternoon, so we need to make sure we are doing the right thing by them and looking after them in that extreme heat.”
