By Tara Murray
Plenty is happening behind the scenes in the Victorian Turf Cricket Association off season.
Coming off its biggest season, the competition is set to increase again for this season.
All top grade sides will return this season, with Glenroy making a return to the competition after not being able to field a side last season.
It will resume in division 5.
VTCA president Zoran Havranek said they were investing in the association in a number of different ways.
He said they’ve had to knock back some clubs increasing the number of sides that have due to not having enough grounds.
“We are landlocked and don’t have the grounds,” he said. “Cricket is the loser here.
“We haven’t had one side drop off. We don’t like having clubs fold and don’t like to see mergers either.
“For that reason we are doing what we can to accommodate them. We’ve worked closely with clubs before on the brink to make sure it doesn’t happen.”
Havranek said there were clubs in the growth areas that could join the competition in the coming years as they want to move onto turf,
He said they had changed their points system in recent seasons to try to attract players from other competitions, rather than take from other sides in the competition.
“There’s a lot of overseas players who want to play given how good the competition is,” he said.
“The points are in place to ensure clubs go outside to get good talent to come in.
“It’s the beauty of a good competition.”
Having formed a partnership with Vanuatu cricket last season, they will continue that as well as having formed a new partnership with Japanese cricket.
Havranek said improving their umpiring had been a focus the past few seasons.
“We’re doing a lot of training with our umpires,” he said. “It used to be when you went to an umpires meeting there were only 15 people attending, now there are over 60.
“With Frogbox we are getting footage of our umpires and they can see what is happening.
“We’ve had more umpires rotate through the senior division. They’ve been able to educate captains of the standards of senior cricket and it’s kept them on their toes as well.
“The senior players have given good feedback and it’s one way to improve the game overall.”
Havranek said they were looking at having umpires for second grades this season as well this season.
One area they are looking at is improving the slow over rate.
The association’s junior academy has continued to grow in the past two years.
A coaching academy is now being put in place as well in partnership with the Western Region Sports Club.
“It’s three to four weeks with some coaches from the senior division to help division 2, 3, 4 and 5 coaches with planning, what the season looks like, how to recruit and running training drills,” Havranek said.
“There will be some sessions before the season and follow ups in the season.”
