Message from the Chief Executive

We planned for the last season with the hope that it would not be as challenging or difficult as the previous season but with the rigour to manage anything that did make it another season “like no other”. Unfortunately, COVID once again had a significant impact on Cricket NSW, our wonderful game and the people who play and love cricket.

Ambiguity of messages and direction from agencies responsible for planning the response to COVID meant that we had to be proactive in our discussions and interactions with these bodies to try to provide some certainty to our sport to enable planning and hope. On reflection, we now know that the season started later and provided logistical and human challenges that made getting our sport played on our fields very difficult. We owe our large cohort of volunteers a huge debt of gratitude and appreciation. Up against these challenges, they displayed personal fortitude and conviction of action to help as many people play our sport as possible. The lifeblood of our game, that feeds and develops those fortunate enough to play at elite levels, was threatened and our volunteers and Association, Zone and Club members responded admirably and passionately.

Growing The Game

Cricket was played and still in significant numbers, despite the late start and external pressures resulting in clubs having to focus on junior and senior cricket to the detriment, from a participation perspective, to our 5-10 year olds. We will rectify this reduction in the “top of our participation funnel” with a renewed focus on getting 5-12 year olds to play and love our sport. Our ambitious goal is to double the number of children aged between 5 and 12 playing cricket by 2025. To do this, CNSW will not only have to focus more strongly on it but provide additional support to our cricket family to help cater for these youngsters and, where required, CNSW will need to deliver some of these programs. At CNSW, we have continued the development of a greater customer focus in the community cricket space with a redesign of our delivery structure. One of the outcomes of this is a shift away from aligning with Local Government Areas to aligning with our cricket Associations.

Peak Performance

Our representative program was disrupted, although by the end of the season we had been able to play most of our originally scheduled matches. All senior domestic competitions were affected in some way. Our Sheffield Shield players started the season with three matches against Victoria, our WBBL teams had to once again play their matches from within a hub in Tasmania, our WNCL team was hurt by the weather and the inability to play most of our BBL matches at home impacted both the teams’ personnel and our organisational revenue. Our Premier Cricket was also disrupted but the season was concluded satisfactorily. Our NSW and Big Bash teams made two finals, but disappointingly we did not win a title this season. We continue to aspire to both develop and provide players to our Australian teams and win titles for NSW.

Organisationally, our people all worked from home for a long period of time. This made continuing to build our culture difficult and particularly made it difficult for new people to CNSW to be inducted and understand our people and organisation. We eventually moved to a hybrid working situation and now, with the move to our new base at Cricket Central, we have our people in Sydney working predominantly from our office, but with the flexibility required in a “new way of working” environment. The completion of our incredible facility at Sydney Olympic Park – now called “Cricket Central” – was delayed but we were able to move into the new buildings at the end of June. The original occupation date was February but COVID-related impacts of staffing and supply chain, combined with abnormally wet weather, delayed the completion. It was well worth waiting for, however. Cricket NSW now has, I believe, the best cricket facility in the world. Combining an ICCcompliant oval with 15 strips on the middle block, a 15-lane indoor centre, more than 40 outdoor turf practice pitches (containing Gabba, WACA and NSW soils), player gymnasium, rehabilitation and medical facilities and a wonderful working space for our people, this will provide an inclusive, world class hub for our sport, accessible to both community and elite cricketers. Financially, it was also a challenging year but one that was handled with discipline and flexibility. The loss of home matches in the BBL reduced our revenue significantly and we had major COVID-related costs to deliver cricket in the high performance area. Overall, a deficit is not one that was budgeted for, but the size of this deficit was mitigated by taking a very disciplined approach to saving costs. Our main priority when determining where to save these costs was not impacting the delivery of cricket.

One of the highlights of the season for me was the opportunity to go on an “Association Roadshow”. With other members of our staff, we held these sessions in Wagga Wagga, Orange, Newcastle, Coffs Harbour, Canberra, Tamworth and Sydney.

It was a real pleasure to be able to meet again, or for the first time, the people who are providing wonderful cricket opportunities right across the State. We wanted to take this opportunity to listen to our people and understand the key issues. We also wanted to discuss the real current state of our sport. The reality is that we are still a strong sport, but we are declining in the numbers choosing to play our game as a percentage of the population. This declining relevancy of our sport requires Cricket NSW, together with our cricket family, to focus on providing our sport in ways that are so attractive, inspirational and enjoyable that particularly young children want to start and continue playing it for their lifetimes. To meet the demands of a changing society and a significantly changing cricket landscape, Cricket NSW needs to not take our eye off the ball currently, but also attempt to “look around corners” to predict where our sport is heading and to ensure we continue to play a major role in cricket as we have done for over 125 years. As well as the changing societal needs, globally we continue to see the increase in T20 club or franchise based competitions (plus The Hundred in England). Many franchises or clubs are looking to have teams in a number of these competitions and many are backed and funded by well financed individuals or companies. We have seen evidence of this shift in focus with the cancellation of the Australia vs South Africa One Day Internationals this summer to enable the South African players to play in their new, privately funded domestic T20 competition. Finally, I would like to thank all members of our cricket family who enable our great sport to be played and loved by so many people. Volunteers, including those who sit on Committees across the State, people who work for Cricket NSW and our Board have all contributed to the season and our purpose and I appreciate the support that I receive from you all in the privileged role I have at Cricket NSW. Thank you all. I hope you were able to replenish and renew in our off-season and I am looking excitedly forward to next season and our continued march to make cricket the most loved sport in NSW and have Cricket NSW regarded as a world-class organisation.

Hall of Fame

The purpose of the CNSW Hall of Fame is to recognise NSW’s greatest cricketers for their contribution to NSW and Australian Cricket. I would like to make special mention of two very worthy inductees this season.

Keith Miller (1919-2004)

The late Keith ‘Nugget’ Miller, the dynamic all-rounder who shone as a member of Don Bradman’s legendary 1948 Invincibles, became the 44th member of the Cricket NSW Hall of Fame at the annual awards night. Miller, arguably the greatest Australian all-rounder, with a cavalier attitude to cricket shaped by his experiences as a combat pilot in WWII, played 50 matches for NSW between 1947 and 1955, including 26 as captain. In that time representing the Blues, Miller amassed 3538 runs at 57.06 and snared 119 wickets at 25.36.

At Test level, Miller was even better with the ball, taking 170 wickets at 22.97 to go with 2958 runs at 36.96 in his 55 appearances for Australia. Across his entire First-Class career that spanned 1937/38 – 1959, Miller played 226 matches, plundering 14183 runs at a tick under 50 and grabbing 497 wickets at 22.30. Along with being a powerful, clean hitter and incisive bowler, Miller was also a sure handed slips fielder and all-round leader in an era of some of cricket’s greatest players. Off the field, Miller lived a charismatic life, playing 50 Australian Rules matches for St Kilda, spending more than three years in the RAAF, including combat tours flying Mosquito fighter bombers, and working as a journalist and author. His best years in cricket came after the war and Miller made it very clear that his period of service had put his sporting endeavours in perspective with the famous quote “Pressure is a Messerschmitt up your arse, playing cricket is not”.

Sally Griffiths

Former NSW and Australia representative, Sally Griffiths, who became a destructive batter in the 1980s and early 90s after an injury put an end to her formidable fast bowling, was inducted as Hall of Fame member number 45.

Griffiths debuted for NSW in 1985 and played in 10 Australian Championships for the Breakers before two more seasons upon the inception of the WNCL. In her First-Class debut for NSW against the touring England team, Griffiths bowled fourteen overs and took 3-8, including 11 maidens. Overall, in 93 senior matches for NSW, Griffiths claimed 77 wickets at 17.54 with her right arm genuine fast bowling, being complemented by 1742 runs at 25.61, including a majestic innings of 100 against Western Australia in the 1992/93 Australian Championship Qualifying Final. Griffiths’ form for NSW, where she batted in the middle order, inevitably led to higher honours and the Newcastle-born all-rounder went on to play seven Tests and 32 One Day Internationals for Australia.

In Test matches, she scored 204 runs at 34.00, mainly batting in the lower order, and took 5 wickets at 41.60, her career punctuated by a memorable 133 in the 1st Test against New Zealand in the 1989/90 season. Griffith’s ODI record included 309 runs at 18.17, 17 wickets at 20.05 and 6 catches. Her debut, against New Zealand in Melbourne, was perhaps the most memorable of her 32 ODIS, returning 3-17 from 9 overs.

Lee Germon