The 2021-22 Narrabri District Junior Cricket Association season began at Cooma Oval on Saturday morning as an abundance of young guns dusted off their cricket kits or excitedly pulled on new gear for their first local comp hitouts of the season.
There have been 125 registrations so far this season which the NDJCA committee said was up 25 per cent on last season’s total of 100 players.
The association chairman Ash Watt told The Courier the committee was pleased that the new campaign was finally underway.
“It’s always good when it finally gets going,” Watt said.
“There’s a lot of organisation early on, particularly with the rep season starting well before Saturday cricket this year.
“It was really good to get those first games underway on Saturday and to see where the numbers ended up, because there’s always a flurry of last-minute registrations.
“It’s good to be at the point now where we can start to put more concrete plans in place for the rest of the season.”
Watt also said that although so many players had registered that the number of pitches available on game day was becoming a concern, new players were still welcome to register.
There are currently 18 players registered in the junior blasters (under-7s), enough players for two games each week in the master blasters (under-9s), four full teams in the under-11s which includes an all-Wee Waa team and an all-girls team, and at this stage most likely three full teams in the under-13/15 competition.
The ball machine will be set up in the nets for the team that has the bye in the older grade each week.
In the opening round on Saturday, the under-13s/15s match was won by Warriors which won the toss and batted first before outscoring their opponents, the Redbacks, by nine runs.
Max Hunter scored a team-best unbeaten 19 in that match to guide the Warriors to 3-81after 20 overs.
In reply, Redbacks fell 10 runs short of victory after finishing on 6-72 at the end of their 20 overs despite the best efforts of the game’s top-scorer Ted Haire (21*).
The Redbacks’ Charlie Haire and the Warriors’ George Barton shared the game’s best bowling figures after both finished with 2-2 from two overs.
The under-11s match was also a close contest that saw Stars down Thunder by 10 runs.
The Stars batted first and saw out the 20 overs as they finished on 4-86, inspired by opening batsman Jackson Hayne who scored an unbeaten 19.
In reply, Thunder was only able to manage 6-70 in its 20 overs. Fletcher Whan top-scored in that innings with five runs.
The game’s best bowling figures went to the Stars’ Lucas Dowdell who took an impressive 3-4 in three overs, while Fletcher Whan was Thunder’s best with the ball with 2-9 from three overs.
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