Bellarine finals to go ahead

THE Bellarine Peninsula Cricket Association has confirmed this weekend’s grand finals will go ahead.

BPCA president Ian Caldwell yesterday declared officials had no plans to cancel matches, irrespective of moves by elite sporting bodies to abandon matches across the globe.

Wednesday night’s presentation will also go ahead, Caldwell confirmed.

“The grand finals will proceed as scheduled,” Caldwell said. “Local cricket, and especially the BPCA, doesn’t have a large amount of people coming and watching the game, so we’re not in the situation like elite sports of cricket and AFL where you’ve got tens of thousands of people attending.

“So our games will continue on. We’ve made strong recommendations to participating clubs to do due diligence and try and minimise the risk to the players by having disposable drink cups, not dunking cups into containers, not sharing equipment, using hand sanitisers, and, where practical, have a designated shiner of the ball.”

Caldwell said it would take a dramatic change in the local situation for a change of mind.

The Federal Government’s ban on non-essential gatherings of more than 500 people comes into effect today.

“There is an escalation in the general community, and as an association, we are mindful of the advice of health authorities and if there were any dramatic changes we would have to evaluate all that information and make a decision at that particular time,” Caldwell said.

He said the Victorian Country Cricket League is closely monitoring the situation, but there were no moves to abandon matches.