Tamworth District Cricket Association president Dave Mudaliar says Monday's announcement that community sport can resume at the 80 per cent double vaccination mark is encouraging news, but there are still a lot of factors to be considered before the first ball can be bowled.
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There is no set date yet, although the government indicated they are expecting to reach the milestone earlier than first thought - possibly in late October. The 'freedoms', of which community sport is one, will at this stage also only be available to fully vaccinated adults (age 16 and up), and those with medical exemptions.
The vaccination issue is one of a myriad the TDCA, and other sports, are grappling with.
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Mudaliar has previously expressed concern about player drain because some players will be barred from participating if they choose not to get vaccinated, or because they can't get vaccinated in time.
Further to that, he said on Monday, he didn't want cricket to be "another external pressure" forcing people to rush into making "complicated decisions."
"Cricket will do the best we can to include as many people as we can," he said.
Adding to the complexity of the new freedoms is that all NSW citizens, regardless of their vaccination status, will be able to participate in community sport from December 1. Mudaliar said that is certainly something that needs to be "factored in".
Welcoming the announcement, while he is waiting for more details, he said it "gives an indication of where we're heading".
"We're very lucky we're even looking at a season considering how extreme it felt a month ago," he said.
He added community sport is still "at the mercy of certain other forces, and we just need to accept that". Those 'other forces' include when the grounds will be ready to play on.
"We need to work with council and when they can actually get on to get the wickets started," he said.
The new boss said without a firm date to work off for 'freedom day', they also can't start structuring the competition. They don't want to set dates and then have to change everything.
"We can't pull the cart before the horse, otherwise we'll be making more work for ourselves unnecessarily and naively," he said.
"We want to be ready to go as soon as possible but it's not necessarily that come the day of freedom we will be ready to play cricket the next week."
The TDCA will have a chance to "get these issues out there" when they meet with the clubs on Tuesday night.
"We need to get information out to the clubs, and get feedback, and give people an understanding of the factors that are at play," Mudaliar said.
