Griffith District Cricket Association introduces timed cricket

Under the new format, games in the preliminary rounds will be played over a single day with a maximum of 85 overs.

Teams batting first can declare at any time but bat no more than 60 overs. For an outright result, the side batting second either has to reach the total or be dismissed. 

If it isn’t dismissed and doesn’t make the runs, the team with the highest run rate for the day with take the majority of points in a winning draw.

Two-day games will be used for the finals series.

While timed cricket does have similarities to one-day cricket, GDCA president Brenton Harrison said the new format also had significant differences and would test the tactical nous of captains.  

“The team batting first needs to work out how long they have to bat for, how many runs they need and how many overs they need to bowl the other team out,” he said.

“It’ll be a good challenge for the captains. 

“There will be a lot of calculations to try to work out how much time they really need, especially if they’re batting first.”

Harrison said the decision to change the two-day format was not taken lightly.

“We know it’s been a part of Griffith cricket for a very long time, but we thought we had to try it,” he said.

“A few of the clubs found it hard to get enough players to play both Saturdays for various reasons, whether it was work commitments or they were going away, and it made it very hard when you could only interchange one player.”

Harrison played timed cricket during a stint in England and believes it can satisfy the needs of players.

“It (introducing timed cricket) was brought up and raised because we just can’t have a full one-day competition (all season) in Griffith,” he said. 

“We still have the limited overs comp, but our junior players coming up still needed some form of traditional cricket and we also need to play it to still be competitive against other associations in rep cricket.” 

The new season starts on the weekend of October 10.