Darren Lehmann backs Salesian College Sunbury plans for Ashes Oval
EX-Australian cricket coach Darren Lehmann has endorsed a college’s plans to create a major sports precinct in the birthplace of Test cricket’s Ashes.
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EX-Australian cricket coach Darren Lehmann has endorsed Salesian College’s plans to create a major sports precinct in Sunbury.
Lehmann spoke to guests at the college’s annual Father’s Day breakfast on Thursday.
He also turned the first sod in a $1.2 million project to rejuvenate the “paddock” where a touring English side played a significant cricket match in 1892/93.
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The paddock will be levelled, irrigated and ringed by a picket-style boundary and be known as Ashes Oval. Work will start this week.
College principal Mark Brockhus said the project was designed to both honour history and foster junior development. “We have wanted to make an oval out of the historic site for some time,” he said.
“It’s all been subject to heritage applications around overlays, but we see it as a way of marking the spot where the Ashes game was played.
“At the same time, we want the oval to be good enough for junior cricket.”
While the oval is self-funded, a sports master plan is a larger strategic project for the school.
“We have been talking with both sides of politics, Cricket Australia, AFL and the FFA trying to gauge their interest and there is scope for ovals and sports facilities along Jacksons Creek, right up to our farm area,” Mr Brockhus said.
Lehmann said a sports precinct including regional level training facilities would be a win for cricket as women’s participation in particular skyrocketed.
“There is so much land here in the centre of town, the council and governments should be jumping at it,” he said. “This is such a place of history when it comes to the Ashes and it only grows and grows.
“As the birthplace of the Ashes, it could really be rivalling Bowral (birthplace of Don Bradman) in importance and with this new oval, you could have big exhibition matches.”
Lehmann was interviewed by two student leaders on topics including family, the art of coaching, the late David Hookes and Phillip Hughes, and demands personally and on his family of being an international coach.
Salesian College is set for an economic windfall, as Villawood Properties is poised to develop a wide expanse of college-owned land with the expected endorsement of the Lancefield Rd Precinct Structure Plan.
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