The Geelong Cricket Association is open to incorporating the Bellarine and Colac comps into its T20 knockout league

The Geelong Cricket Association is open to expanding its popular new knockout T20 competition with some of its regional neighbours.

The Geelong Cricket Association is open to discussions with its Bellarine and Colac neighbours for a FA Cup-style knockout T20 competition in coming seasons.

GCA president Rob Vines said the majority of GCA clubs were keen to see a repeat of last season’s inaugural knockout T20 competition this summer, after the shortest form of the game took a back seat locally due to the pandemic.

However, with the 32-club, Tuesday evening competition due to return on November 14 and run into the new year, Vines said he was open to clubs in the Bellarine and Colac competitions to join in coming summers.

St Peter’s batter Matt Sorgiovanni hits out in last season’s T20 grand final. Picture: Alan Barber

“It would be nice to think one day we might be able to create a regionwide T20 tournament, and I’m not adverse to having that conversation with the Bellarine and Colac associations, if we thought that had some merit,” Vines said.

“And they could join a knockout style competition, we’d make it a much bigger competition.”

Meanwhile, Vines said the majority of GCA clubs were keen to see a repeat of last year’s T20 competition, which was won by St Joseph’s over St Peter’s in February by four runs.

“We thought it went pretty well, we canvassed the clubs again on it this season, to see if they wanted to continue with that and the majority view was that we should do that,” he said.

“It’s a different style of competition that you’d traditionally see, and we think it’s good to do something different.”

Cameron Port delivers a ball for St Joseph's. Picture: Alan Barber

The host of each match is awarded to the lower ranked club, or the club which is drawn first from a ballot if both are from the same division.

“We’re not fundamentally changing anything,” Vines said.

“Clubs are playing outside of their normal divisional groupings.

“It creates something a bit different.

“We wanted to do it (at the same time) last year but weren’t able to because of the weather.”

The five-round competition, including the semi finals and grand final, will run into the new year.

The league will announce the first round of the competition in coming weeks.

Originally published as The Geelong Cricket Association is open to incorporating the Bellarine and Colac comps into its T20 knockout league