It's official: the new cricket season is just over two weeks away.
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Clubs met with Cricket-Albury Wodonga last night to thrash out the details after weeks of uncertainty due to COVID restrictions on either side of the border.
The Provincial and Hume competitions will launch on October 23, with the Victoria-based CAW District to start three weeks later on November 13 as Victoria edges closer to the 80 percent vaccination rate required for community sport to restart.
All players will need to be double-vaccinated to play.
"Provincial first and second grade will start on the weekend of October 23 with Saturday and Sunday T20s," CAW chairman Michael Erdeljac explained.
"They'll go into nine more T20s over the next five weeks.
"They'll play October 30, November 6 and the following three Saturdays will be done as double-headers where they play two games on the one day.
"Those games (the double-headers) won't start until we're allowed to play in Victoria.
"We'll look to start some C-grade and juniors on November 6 and the rest of our juniors and C-grades on November 13.
"At this point, people will have to be double-vaccinated to play and if they're not, they won't be playing.
"I never would have dreamed of having to do this but the world is a different place.
"We are following the guidelines given to us by Cricket Victoria and Cricket NSW.
"Exactly how we do it, we've still got to work out."
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Clubs will be updated every Thursday as the picture in both states changes.
"The meeting was amicable," Erdeljac said.
"We went through the guidelines and start dates and there were no major issues from anybody. They accepted it because that's what's got to happen.
"If you want to play sport in Victoria and NSW, going forward at the moment, these are the rules and this is what you're going to do.
"We now know when we start, where we're going and what we're doing so it gives everybody a guideline to go through the process.
"That's what all the clubs were chasing.
"If we still don't start due to some COVID issues, those matches will be declared draws."
It's been a turbulent pre-season to this point but there's finally light at the end of the tunnel for Erdeljac and the 32 CAW clubs.
"I'll be the happiest person when the first games start," Erdeljac said.
"Once that happens, it means all the ground work been completed."
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