The weather gods have dealt a cruel blow to the beginning of the 2022/23 Cricket Shepparton season, with the association making the decision to cancel its round one fixtures on Tuesday night.
With an expected 53mm to 85mm of rain forecast to fall on Greater Shepparton between Wednesday and Friday, officials were concerned that with a number of grounds recently hosting football finals, the moisture would have made it impossible to prepare an adequate wicket.
Association president Brandan Reilly explained why getting on the park this weekend wasn’t feasible.
“Cricket Shepparton is pretty disappointed with the forecast, but we obviously can’t help Mother Nature with the rain, and I think with the La Niña hanging around this will be a recurring issue this season,” Reilly said.
“The biggest factor for Cricket Shepparton was the fact that a lot of our grounds haven’t had a lot of preparation, with football finals only just wrapping up, and with the wet weather around a lot of clubs haven’t been able to get rollers on to their pitches.
“I know a lot of associations around Victoria have pulled the pin, so we aren’t the first to make this call and we certainly won’t be the last.”
As for why the call to cancel the round was made so early in the week, Reilly said the association wanted to give clubs the best opportunity to prepare a pitch for the round two fixtures.
“The reason why we made the decision so early was to allow our groundskeepers and curators to get their wickets up for round two and not put any extra damage on their grounds or pitches trying to get prepared for this weekend,” he said.
“Just about all of our clubs are on board with decision, a couple were keen to wait a little bit longer, but at the same time everyone understands that each club is in a different position when it comes to ground preparation.
“The hardest wicket to get up is the first one of the season; if this was mid-January we would have waited, but for now we just didn’t want to take the risk.”
Round one will now become a washout, with all clubs sharing the points and officially beginning their seasons the following weekend.