GCA T20 competition has been pushed back once again

The GCA has gone “back to the drawing board” as it looks to figure out a path forward for the midweek T20 competition.

South Barwon ovals were flooded again recently.

The Geelong Cricket Association is set to canvas clubs on the future of the midweek T20 tournament, which is unlikely to start until the new year.

Rain has wreaked havoc with the knockout, inter-division competition, with the GCA forced to cancel the opening round multiple times.

GCA president Rob Vines confirmed that the tournament is now likely to be played in 2023.

“Unfortunately we’ve had to defer the start of the competition about two or three times now because of the weather,” Vines said.

“That meant that we needed to go back to the drawing board a bit.”

South Barwon ovals are flooded again.

Vines said the GCA would make an announcement on the state of the competition before Christmas.

“We don’t think it’s feasible to run it before Christmas and we need to give our curators and everyone just a bit of a break anyway,” he said.

“We’ve looked at some options post-Christmas, including the option of abandoning the idea of having a T20 tournament this year.

“We want to go back out to the clubs to canvas their views, so that’s what’s going to happen over the next fortnight.

“After we’ve done a bit more club consultation, we’ll make an announcement on it before Christmas.”

The T20 competition was set up to be similar to the FA Cup, with three rounds of knockout games before two semi-finals and a final.

GCA president Rob Vines. Picture: Peter Ristevski

The round 1 fixture included match-ups between Teesdale (GCA4) and St Joseph’s (GCA1) as well as Modewarre (GCA3) and East Belmont (GCA1).

Vines added that he was hopeful of a second round of GCA men’s play getting underway on Saturday.

One round has been played across the four divisions thus far, however signs are promising for play this weekend, with a clear forecast on Friday and 0-2mm of rain expected on Saturday.

“The ones (grounds) I’m most nervous about are the flood-impacted grounds down on the Belmont Common, they’re the ones that I think are most at risk at the moment,” he said.

“Otherwise the weather’s looking promising, although the drying conditions are not as good as I’d like them to be.

“We have contingency plans … that if a ground is unavailable, we can reschedule those games to other venues.”

Hit for six: GCA T20 competition delayed again

The Geelong Cricket Association has postponed its inaugural inter-division T20 competition again, with no confirmed date to host the opening round of the tournament.

Opening-round games were set to be held in August, but persistent rain has meant the competition could not get off the ground.

GCA president Rob Vines said at least 11 of the 16 grounds that were set to host games on Tuesday are not ready for cricket to be played.

“It’s incredibly frustrating, but we still want to have a T20 tournament if at all possible,” he said.

“We’ll have a Zoom meeting (on Tuesday) to discuss potential ways forward for the tournament.

“We are at the mercy of the weather, and given the rain over the next day or so that number (11 unavailable grounds) may get worse.”

The competition was initially drawn to hold a grand final on Australia Day, but the league is running out of ‘rain days’ to host postponed matches.

It is not the only competition to suffer from the significant downpour so far this summer, with the mainstay GCA competition only managing one round of cricket since the start of August.

Vines said he was hopeful the forecast stayed promising to end the week and games could be played on Saturday.

“Forecasts can change day-by-day, so I wouldn’t say it’s necessarily a good indicator for this coming weekend,” he said.

“It’s been a steadily improving outlook for this week, we hopefully will have more grounds available this week.

“We do have the flood-affected grounds down at South Barwon, and with the weekend of rain that we’ve had that the flood waters are on the rise … and I suspect those grounds will still be unavailable just based on last weeks’ flood.

“That’s an issue, but we were able to reschedule games, so if the rain hadn’t have come we would’ve played those games, so that’s something we’ll look at again.”

Originally published as GCA T20 competition has been pushed back once again