The carnival will see teams from the Northern Inland, Mid North Coast, Hunter Valley and Scots College pad up across 13s, 14s and 16s for the first junior cricket carnival of the season.

It follows four days of top quality cricket action with the cream of U15 and U18 female talent taking to the Tamworth wickets for the Country Championships.

Each side will play each other once with the top side on points at the end of play on Monday declared the division winner.

The ongoing wet weather has forced organisers to transfer games to synthetic pitches with Riverside 9 and Chauvel Park to host the two 16s games on Saturday, Riverside 7 and 8 the 14s and Riverside 4 and 5 the 13s.

Damian Henry is managing the Northern Inland 13s side, which hasn’t had a lot of luck preparing.

“We had two trainings scheduled and both have been washed out,” Henry said.

A couple of them have had a bit of a hit with Matt Holmes and Callum Henry playing in the trial games against St George down in Branxton during the week. 

Both had a pretty good outing with Holmes taking two wickets and Henry hitting an unbeaten 20.

Holmes is one of three players backing up from last years carnival with Moree’s Ed Montgomery and Inverell’s Braydon Campion part of the 13s side.

Some of the side also did have a hit-out against Scots on Friday. The 13s, with the help of a few of the Tamworth 12s and 13s, 14s and 16s all played Twenty20 games in preparation for the weekend.

The carnival as well providing some valuable time in the middle heading into the season will also form part of the selection process for the Central North Kookaburra Cup and Bradman Cup sides.

Inverell’s Tom Scoble and Ryan Meppem have meanwhile, following their efforts at the Country Colts carnival in Dubbo, been selected to play in this weeks U19 State Challenge in Richmond.

Meppem has been named in the Country Sixers side and Scoble the Country Thunder to play the two metropolitan sides over Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday.

The two will be vying for selection in the ACT/NSW Country team to contest the National Championships. 

NORTHERN INLAND TEAMS

13s: Nicholas Mead, Oliver Schmude, Kade Garrett, Samuel Johnson, Edward Montgomery, Callum Henry, Jaydon Windsor, Braydon Campion, Navida Geeganage, Matthew Holmes, Jack House, Zachery Craig.

14s: Kareena Dawson, Joshua Attard, Lachlan Wesierski, Oscar Spinks, Luke Maher, Joey Mead, Benji Marshall, Jakeb Nipperess, Zac Clarke, Cotter Litchfield, Nick Page, Daniel Brown,.

16s: Hamish Fauchon, Alexander Beasley, Lachlan Barton, Kieran Dennis, Kaleb McIlveen, Isaac Harris, Conrad George, Henry Sindel, Jack Montgomery, Henry Smith, James Austin, Jackson Gwynne.