BENDIGO Country Week sides will revert back to filling out hard-copy teamsheets next year to avoid the situation where two teams were disqualified from Friday’s finals, before one was later reinstated.
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The Bendigo District Cricket Association – the organising body of Country Week – disqualified both Goulburn Murray (division one) and Northern United (division three) from playing in Friday’s finals for a breach of rule 16.2 that restricts the number of players used per team throughout the carnival to 17.
However, just over two hours after being informed on Thursday night it had lost its position in the division one final against Murray Valley and would be replaced by Gisborne, Goulburn Murray was reinstated into the final at about 10.40pm.
In the ensuring two hours it was found that MyCricket had listed Jayden Tucker as having played two games for Goulburn Murray during the week as he was included in the system scorecards for days three and four without playing.
With Tucker’s removal from the Goulburn Murray records, it reduced the team’s playing numbers back to 17 for the week and as a result, it was given its position in the final back.
In recent seasons since Bendigo Country Week has been run off MyCricket, teams haven’t been required to fill out pre-game hard copy teamsheets.
But BDCA president Wayne Walsh has indicated hard copy teamsheets will return next year to avoid another situation like Thursday night where Goulburn Murray had made the final, was told it was out, and was then back in, while Gisborne was in and then out.
“Going forward, the simple thing is we’ll go back to the old system whereby teams will name their 12 players who are playing on teamsheets, which will then correlate with MyCricket,” Walsh said on Friday.
“On MyCricket you can have 14, 15, 16 players entered into a game, but having a hard copy teamsheet will make it much easier to determine who has played on any given day.”
Walsh added the ruling that restricted teams to playing no more than 17 players during the week – Northern United used 21 – was driven by the competing associations.
“Some of the travelling associations have felt they were a bit hard done by in that teams of closer proximity could rotate players at will while they were unable to given the distance,” Walsh said.
“This is a rule that is driven by the associations… it’s not driven by the BDCA, it’s the associations who want to make sure that all teams are playing on a fair and equal playing field.”
