After almost seven months Tamworth's veterans cricketers are preparing to return to the pitch.
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In place of the postponed Over-60s State Championships, Tamworth is hosting a three-day friendly carnival.
Starting on Sunday it will feature teams from Coffs Harbour, Mid North Coast, New England, Quirindi, Sydney and the ACT.
Tamworth Veterans Cricket president Greg Kellett said as they already had the grounds booked for the state championships and with the restrictions on inter-regional travel being eased they thought "why don't we do something about it?".
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So they got in contact with the Coffs, Mid North Coast, Armidale and Quirindi associations and they were keen to be involved. He was then talking to the state president Simon Lyon and he said his side (Port Jackson) would be interested in coming up as were ACT, and from what was going to be a six-team carnival grew to eight with Tamworth and a composite team.
Kellett said there will be "some handy cricketers" playing over the three days with a number of Australian over-60s, as well as a couple of Australian over-70s, among the various sides.
There will be one day-night game each day played at No.1 Oval and Kellett spruiked that they will have light-up stumps and bails.
He said the players are all itching to get back out there.
"Everyone I speak to says lets have a game of cricket," he said.
The Tamworth players have been having a few games amongst themselves on the synthetic for a few weeks now but the carnival will be their first competitive cricket since early March.
As it all starts up again, the following Sunday the 50s and 60s are scheduled to play New England.
