Club cricket gets significant shake-up
“Whilst it's great to have 18 teams entered [across three grades], we are trying to put plans in place now to ensure that the competition is sustainable in years to come.”
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Southland senior club cricket has been given its biggest shakeup in many years with a new format hoped to ensure the long-term sustainability of the top-flight competition.
There have been some concerns around the state of Southland’s ILT Premier League competition in recent seasons.
The Metropolitan Cricket Club withdrew from that top-flight competition last season reducing it to a five-team league. There had also been some fears around how some of the remaining five teams were shaping for the future.
Southland Cricket Association general manager Lauren Roney said numerous meetings have been held during the offseason and feedback gathered from clubs.
Encouragingly 18 teams have entered across the three senior grades. It is one up on last season with Te Anau entering a second team for 2024-2025.
“Whilst it's great to have 18 teams entered, we are trying to put plans in place now to ensure that the competition is sustainable in years to come,” Roney said.
Southland Cricket felt the best option for senior club cricket was to go down to two grades by merging the premier and division competitions.
Following the series of discussions with clubs during the off-season it settled on introducing cross over games between premier teams and division teams to start the 2024-2025 club season.
“The thinking behind this is that Div 1 teams will have a bit of a 'taster' to see how they compete against Prem teams, before we consider the option of moving to two grades in seasons to come,” Roney said.
The 10 premier and division one teams will play 40-over per team cross over games from November 2 through to February.
From that point they will then split back to premier and division one competitions. The points accumulated through those cross-over fixtures will carried into the team’s respective premier and division one competitions.
While club cricket is scheduled to start on November 2 there is hope for some better weather from now and then to dry the cricket grounds throughout Southland.
THE LOWDOWN:
Premier and Division 1 will be combined to play a full round of 40 over cricket. Five premier teams and five division 1 teams will play nine rounds of 40 over cricket.
Senior club cricket will then return to three grades in February. All points from cross-over round to carry forward to Feb/March round.
Division 2 is an eight team competition and they play two full rounds and finals.
T20 games will be played by all grades in January, with some Friday game options for Invercargill. The T20 finals ate likely to be on Sunday 26 January at Queens Park.
THE TEAMS:
(Premier)
Appleby, Invercargill-Old Boys, Marist, SBHS 1st XI, Waikoikoi.
(Division One)
Blueys, Central Western, Metro Cubs, Royal Riders, Te Anau.
(Division Two)
Albion, Appleby 2nds, Central Western 2nds, Marist 2nds, SBHS 2nd XI, Te Anau 2nds, Waikoikoi 2nds, Wyndale.
Meanwhile the Southland Cricket Association has two new summer cricket development officers on board with Lucy McHutchon and Ollie Picken joining the SCA team.
Picken is from Scotland and will also play for the Waikoikoi in the Southland club scene.
McHutchon has been part of New Zealand Cricket’s Pathway to Peformance Female Coaching Programme.
