SDCA forced into second washout

Players from across the Seymour District Cricket Association were forced to the sidelines for a second straight week as wild weather forced another washed out round of fixtures.

The association confirmed the news via social media on Friday, urging all in the region to stay safe as major flooding engulfed Seymour, the association’s biggest town.

In terms of club’s directly affected by the flooding, Eastern Hill copped the brunt of the damage, with its Kings Park home ground still engulfed by floodwaters.

Chittick Park, home of Seymour Cricket Club, also received some damage from the rain but was largely unaffected by the lingering flood water.

SDCA president Ben Trezise said it was another straight forward decision to call off the round two fixtures as the Seymour community braced for a large scale clean up effort.

“Given the amount of rain that come through last week and the flooding situation occurring in Seymour, there was no way we could play on the weekend,” Trezise said.

“It goes without saying, but the most important thing was ensuring that everybody in our community was safe, cricket has been far from the most important thing over the last few days.”

The biggest challenge now facing the SDCA is the situation at Eastern Hill, with the lingering floodwater meaning that the ground will certainly be out of action for a period of time.

Trezise outlined his dealings with the club and how the association would look to schedule its upcoming matches.

“I spoke to the president of Eastern Hill this morning, who play at Kings Park, and he said it was receding which is great,” he said.

“But they have a back oval there as well and both have been completely engulfed, they haven’t been able to assess the damage yet, so there is definitely no chance they’ll be able to play there this weekend for starters.

“Other grounds around the association will be available, so whether * Eastern Hill can play away for the period that Kings Park is out of action we will look into that.

“But there are also challenges in B-grade fixtures which could affect that, so we will have to wait and find out the damage before locking in the fixture further.”

In terms of when the SDCA will kick off, the plan is still to get all players back onto the pitch this weekend for their round three fixtures.

But with another downpour forecasted for later in the week, 16mm to 65mm scheduled in Seymour from Thursday to Saturday, Trezise conceded a return this week was looking unlikely.

“Right now we are definitely planning to go ahead this week, bar Eastern Hill, all the clubs are all systems go in getting their grounds up if it remains dry,” he said. “Unfortunately though the weather isn’t looking too flash again this weekend which will make things hard, but for now we’ll just see how we go I suppose.”

And as for the matches that have already been cancelled over the past fortnight, he said there was no chance they could be rescheduled to a later date.

“Unfortunately it’s just not possible for us to reschedule the games that have been washed out, maybe one week we could have, but certainly not two,” he said.

“We will just put these last two rounds down as washouts and hopefully push ahead this weekend and get cricket back to the grounds around the SDCA.”