Hi Cricket lovers, I am going to be writing a series of cricket stories on my local town of Orange through the Covid-19 crisis and beyond as a way of spreading the word about regional cricket in Australia and hopefully as a way of encouraging many players to travel to Australia and play cricket for clubs like mine rather than simply playing in the big cities. Throughout the course of these stories I will endeavour to speak to players for the majority of clubs in my town and give people the viewpoints of cricket from the young brigade as well as the more seasoned veterans who are still plying their trade around the region.
I thought in this first article I would briefly discuss my cricket journey as well as discuss the town of orange, the club that I am involved with and provide a little bit of information about the cricket that is played here.
My personal cricket began in 1992, I can remember walking into my grand-parents lounge room at New Years to see the men of the family watching the television, I sat down to watch and immediately was enthralled, Australia was playing the great West Indies team, Australia was batting and a player who was to become my childhood hero in Steve Waugh was himself batting that day and scored 100. The match itself ended in a draw as a certain Brian Lara scored 277. From this point I lived for cricket.
Like most young Australians I played the game as a boy up until the age of 16 and whilst I loved the game I was not the greatest at it and so the allure of money and girls saw myself bid farewell to cricket for about 10 years until I was enticed back as a fill in, I have barely missed a game since. Thankfully I am back playing now and am fully involved with my club, Centrals Cricket Club as the vice president and captain of the 2nd XI, which this season won a covid-19 affected title.
I play cricket the town of Orange NSW, the town has a population of just shy of 40,000 people and is the 13th biggest in the state. The town itself has become a mecca of sorts for foodies and wine aficionados due to the excellent festivals which are held here. The climate is very similar to that of England as it can be rather cold and with snow in the winter but is rather nice in spring / summer which the temperature usually in the high 20’s.
The club which I play for is called Centrals Cricket Club. The club currently have 4 senior teams, one 1st grade team, one 2nd grade team and two 3rd grade teams. The club has won two lower grade titles in the last 3 years and is currently rebuilding its junior base to ensure that we have a solid platform to build upon into the future. Currently at the end of last season the club had 4 junior teams with nearly 50 players both male and female taking the field this year.
Cricket in orange has the allure of being played in pleasant country settings. In town there is currently a mixture of turf and synthetic pitches. 1st and 2nd grade play their games on turf whilst the 3rd grade comp plays on a mixture of both. The competition is rather competitive and played to a reasonable level. The senior competition here currently has 4 grades. The first grade competition has combined with a local city of Bathurst and has 10 teams currently participating in it. The comp set up currently see’s each team play 9 games, which are all 2 day fixtures as well as a finals series. Orange also boasts the regions premier 20/20, which is played under lights on a Friday night. The 2nd grade comp is a mixture of one and two games and currently has 5 teams participating in it. The 3rd grade comp is all one day games and has 8 teams. The Centenary comp is more of a colts like set up, however, it does allow for some overage players to help nurture the younger players through.
