TAMWORTH will be sending two sides to the first official Over 50s Veterans Cricket Championships in Port Macquarie next year as the seniors and veterans game continues to boom around the region.
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Recently Tamworth had plenty of players donning the Blue of NSW for the Over 60s and 70s state and national championships as well as touring games, while Chriss Crowell even got the call-up to wear the veterans Baggy Green against England at Adelaide recently, although the Over 50s competition has only been launched this season.
Chief organiser Greg Kellett and five of his fellow Over 50s players got their first dose of the representative game before Christmas and it left them wanting more.
An unofficial Over 50s state championships were held in Sydney with ten teams from all over Australia competing.
Kellett, Barry Everingham, Richard Rowlings, Bede Maher, Steve Wilson and former Tamworthian Andrew Clemence all played in one of the five NSW sides that attended the carnival, and almost went all the way.
“We played Western Australia on the finals day and they had only dropped one game that week,” Kellett said.
“I am not sure exactly where we finished but there was some great cricket played and a few former shield players running around in some sides.”
“Some of the bowling was as quick as anything I have seen in Tamworth grade cricket.”
After seeing just how competitive the Over 50 division is going to be Kellett said that the Tamworth guys will have to make a decision on exactly how serious they want to take the carnival and the game in the future.
“We don’t get together that often at the moment and some of these guys play together every week or fortnight.”
“That is what we are trying to do but in the meantime we have to decide whether we want to be competitive or just have some fun in Port.”
There is every chance the Tamworth sloggers will manage to do both, with some solid form running through both the ‘Gleesons’ and ‘Hazlewoods’, as the two sides are called, named after two of the regions finest Test products.
“The vets game is huge at the moment,” Kellett said.
“We are trying to get an Over 50s competition starting in Tamworth and gets vets game played every fortnight.”
“We want to put the feelers out for anyone who is interested to come and have a game.”
The next local Over 50s game will be a day nighter at No 1 Oval on Friday January 6 starting at 5pm, before they head to Port on February 22.
