THERE is a lot of water to go under the bridge but the idea of a Greater Northern team taking part in Cricket Tasmania’s Premier League competition is gaining momentum.
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About 50 Cricket North players and administrators met in Launceston on Wednesday night to discuss the concept rising from recommendations and feedback in the Hussey Review.
Cricket Tasmania Northern administrator David Fry said the idea whereby the best players from the North and North-West would combine and play in the Hobart-based league from season 2018-19 received support.
“There were a number of aspects discussed such as how it would work with clubs, what sort of entity would run the team, where it would be based, where the players would train; none of that has been definitively resolved but there was a feeling that people certainly wanted to explore it more,” Fry said.
He said there was a consensus that a new entity would need to be formed – either run by Cricket Tasmania, Cricket North, Cricket North-West or a combination – with a ballpark squad of about 20 players.
Cricket Tasmania chief executive Nick Cummins said those not picked in the playing XI would then be free to play with their base club.
The roster would be a home and away fixture with Southern teams travelling North every second week to play at a venue yet to be determined. Cummins said it could be shared around Northern grounds with the under-used UTAS Stadium also a realistic option.
“If we believe that this is the right way to go we’d love to talk to the Launceston City Council about using the stadium more for cricket,” he said.
“I think we are going to be playing more Big Bash games there in the future adding more elite content, so having premier cricket content there as well would be a fantastic utilisation.”
Cummins said a consultation meeting had also taken place in the North-West and that a concept plan would take about a month to formulate.
“We’ve gathered a lot of thoughts from the different groups and we now need to go away and work on what we believe is the best model and tackle some of the logistics around training, travel and finance,” he said.
“Then we’ll come back with what we think the concept would look like and test it with those same people again. We’re really pleased how positive the cricket communities in the North and North-West have been about it and how committed they’ve been to overcoming some of the challenges.”