Whole new ball game T20 event brings excitement to Far North

AN “IPL-style” Twenty-20 tournament is set to headline a new era for cricket in Far North Queensland next year.

The tournament will be unlike anything Cairns has seen before, with traditional clubs, such as Rovers, Norths and Mulgrave, not taking part.

Organiser and Queensland Country Cricket Association stalwart Kev Maher (right) described the tournament as “an

IPL-style Big Bash competition”.

“We’ll have four IPL-style franchises and players can nominate themselves to go into the draft,” Maher said.

“Players will be drafted into the various franchises, which we hope will create a lot of excitement.”

Maher said similar tournaments, such as the Aussie Bundy Big Bash and Darling Downs Bush Bash League, were having great success.

“They played it all on the Friday night in Bundaberg and the local people saw it as entertainment,” he said.

“They got more than 400 to come down and watch their final – that’s amazing for a place like Bundaberg.

“We’ve got to do that – we’ve got to provide something there that people want to go and watch cricket.”

The format will be introduced towards the end of upcoming Cricket Far North’s 2020/21 summer calendar, after the one-day final in late February.

“We’ll have lights available at Griffiths Park by then, so there’ll be some Friday night cricket and even some Saturday night games,” Maher said.

“We hope that generates a lot of interest in the game.”

Cricket Far North president Julian Warnock said it was part of a plan to invest back into the game.

“That’s going to come in towards the end of our season and will mesh in with our standard fixtures but that’s going to be a lot of fun,” he said.

“Our numbers in our senior competitions virtually haven’t changed in 10 years, yet the population has increase by so many more thousand.

“So we’ve been thinking about what can we do to do promote cricket and to get more people involved.

“I think this Big Bash-style tournament is another thing that’s going to encourage people to come in.

“It’s got so much more potential behind it to really drive cricket a lot further.”

Filling their boots

DOZENS of pairs of New Balance boots are on the way to FNQ following a new partnership with the Gold Coast Suns. The Suns have announced New Balance as the club’s official boot partner and thanked the global sportswear company for marking the occasion with a generous donation. New Balance will donate 5000 pairs of boots to Indigenous youths and to youths in need, in the Suns’ regions of Gold Coast, Darwin and North Queensland. “As part of our partnership with New Balance, the boots will be allocated to the Suns’ regions of the Gold Coast, Darwin and the Northern Territory and North Queensland,” Gold Coast Suns chief executive Mark Evans said.

Gordy verdict stands

NORTH Queensland horse trainer Leslie Gordy has had his original fine confirmed after a Queensland Racing Integrity Commission internal review. Gordy, who is usually Townsville-based but has had his horses in Mareeba of late, presented Mighty Marmalade to Cluden Park on December 14, 2019, for the 0-60 Handicap 1200m and a post-race urine sample taken was found to contain the prohibited substance arsenic. He was later fined $2000 and Mighty Marmalade was disqualified. Gordy decided to appeal against the fine and disqualification but following an internal review, QRIC said the original decision of charge and penalty had been confirmed.

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