Coly’s developing a cricket hub

Cricket in the town has been developing with Nomads teams in the GDCA 2nd and 3rd grade competitions, as well as the McGann Family T20 Shields.

In the off-season, major cricketing infrastructure developments have been taking place.

Coleambally Cricket Club member Alistair Burge said with the help of significant funding, improvements have been made to the turf and facilities.

New nets and picket fencing have also been installed at the Coleambally cricket oval.

“Coleambally Cricket Club, in conjunction with Murrumbidgee Council, have been undertaking a generational project which started in the cricket off-season,” Burge said.

“There are three ovals in Coleambally. Number three will become almost exclusively cricket, with the club taking the lease.

“With the developments, Murrumbidgee Council put forward $170,000.

“We also partnered with Cricket Australia and Cricket NSW, who have contributed an extra $40,000.

“With this, we completely redeveloped the centre turf wicket. We’ve put in three new pitches as well as a three lane retractable nets facility.

“The last major works for this project are under way now.

“The oval hasn’t had any upgrades since the town was first dug out of the ground around the 1960s. It has had pretty basic facilities since then.”

With these major upgrades, the club has also been facilitating grassroots cricket activity in the community.

“We partnered with Transgrid, receiving $3500 to upgrade our training equipment.

“This has helped with a breakfast blast program with the school, our Woolworths Blast program and junior program with a local comp.

“All of these are with the aim to foster a healthy cricket culture in town.”

Burge said the upgrades are intended to provide an opportunity for a cricketing hub for the region at Coleambally.

“Better facilities leads to better training, which leads to better quality cricket.

“There have been discussions of making the turf wicket available for representative cricket, cricket carnivals and even for preseason matches for premier cricket grades when it is difficult to find suitable pitches to use.

“Junior footy also use the facilities, but the oval will be predominantly for cricket.

“This allows us to prepare wickets for quality cricket.”

With the new cricket pitches laid, and the nets and fencing nearing completion, Burge said the aim is to have phase one of the project completed by the end of 2025.

“We’re hoping to have everything in phase one completed by the end of the year, and start with fresh facilities in the new calendar year.

“We hope to do a big grand opening, maybe hold a reunion with past players and invite all the stakeholders that have been involved around the end of the year in conjunction with the start of the season.

“We’ve been really lucky in Coleambally with Murrumbidgee Council, who are great to work with.

“It is also great having a partnership with the likes of Cricket Australia, Cricket NSW and Transgrid.

“Hopefully, this is just the start as our next aim is to develop the cricket pavilion.

“The club would love to partner with any community organisations to help get this phase two off the ground.

“We’ve got a small subcommittee of volunteers who have done a power of work. It just shows when you get a group who come together and are committed, you can achieve great things.”

The Coleambally Nomads’ season starts with the 3rd grade, who begin their 10 round Friday night competition next Friday, October 17.

The opening round is against the Hanwood Warriors from 5pm.

The side will compete for Alan Giddey T20 Shield honours.

Coleambally’s premiership defence in 2nd grade begins on Saturday, October 25 in a 14 round competition.

They take on the Coro Cougars from 1pm at Coleambally.

The club also gets the opportunity to defend their McGann Memorial Shield T20 premiership, which is scheduled for Sunday, December 7.