As Steve Rixon and Doug Walters watch a group of young cricketers prepare for a fourth grade match, it takes them back to their days running around ovals in Albury and Dungog.
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The former Australian cricketers, who are visiting Griffith with the Baggie Blues, want to ensure that cricket in the country stays alive and the juniors get the same opportunity they did.
“Sport is dying in the country areas,” Walters said.
“The main objective, as I see it, of tours like this is to increase the popularity of sport.
“It’s fantastic to come out to the country areas to promote, in this case, cricket.”
Walters and Rixon lead a long list of bush cricketers who have played first class cricket for NSW.
Greats such as Glenn McGrath, Michael Slater and Mark Taylor all grew up in country areas.
Walters wanted to see the large contingent of country cricketers in the NSW side continue.
“Overall, its something like 60 per cent of players who have played for NSW have came from country areas and we want to maintain that proportion,” Walters said.
“These kids (GDCA fourth graders) have got a bit of a way to go, but you don’t know. Hopefully some of them might get lucky like I did and in five years time they’ll be playing for NSW.”
Rixon said participation was a major issue.
Whilst, Rixon commended the efforts of the Griffith District Cricket Association, he said more needed to be done to get kids involved in the sport or run the risk of potential greats falling through the cracks.
From there, Rixon believed that talented youngsters should have an eye kept on them.
“There should be a lot more people looking at these kids (in the country),” Rixon said.
“I don’t necessarily mean to push them too hard but make sure they're in the system and whenever the right opportunity comes, make sure they're looked at.”
Garry Tucker from the Exies Club echoed the sentiments about country cricket.
“You’ll see a lot of associations have dropped from eight to three teams or gone all together. We need to get it back into schools and look after these kids,” Tucker said.