By Tyler Wright
Cricket clubs and league representatives alike have experienced a difficult cricket season in 2022, with the Ferntree Gully and District Cricket Association postponing all Senior and Junior matches across the 25 clubs in the league until the weekend of Friday 11 November.
All Senior and Junior fixtures have been redrawn, with division one and division two results from round two still standing.
After that, the remaining 13 games will be held each Saturday coming up to the finals in around March.
Monbulk Cricket Club is one affected team in the league, with its oval flooded in the aftermath of heavy rain on Thursday 25 October.
Senior coach Kyle Snyman, who has been involved in the local cricket competition for over 20 years, said he has never seen rain like what he hills has experienced at the start of the cricket season.
Despite this, the club has endeavoured to continue as per usual despite only playing one game this season.
“[On Thursday 3 November], we still had 40 turn up to training in wet conditions, we played a few games at the end, everyone was up and about and loud, and there was laughter and then we had a carpet bowls and table tennis competition indoors…we selected four teams and we’re playing practice matches,” Snyman said.
“I don’t think there’s a right way or wrong way of going about it, I just think the most important thing is keeping everyone engaged and still treating every week and every session like we’re still playing cricket, and hopefully we will get on next week when we’re meant to.”
Ferntree Gully & District Cricket Association president Colin Capon said during the first few weeks of the season, there were only four or five grounds playable, with heavy rains saturating the grounds.
“I think it’s frustration across the board. Not so much the decision we’ve had to make, but the fact that we simply can’t do anything,” Capon said.
“There’s a couple of grounds that do recover very well, [and] that’s probably very frustrating for the players of those clubs… but you can’t run a competition on one or two grounds.”
Capon said he is in regular contact with club president’s to assess the condition of the grounds.
