Sub-District officials fear changes to Cricket Victoria’s under-age pathway will leave the JG Craig Shield with ‘leftover’ players, writes PAUL AMY.
It’s been an integral part of the Victorian under-age cricket landscape for many years, but the future of the Victorian Sub-District Cricket Association’s JG Craig Shield is under review.
The competition, formerly known as the RM Hatch Shield, has featured many of Victorian cricket’s leading players.
Matt Short, for example, turned out for Altona in 2009-10.Former Victorian captain and Test all-rounder Cameron White played for Elsternwick and Evan Gulbis for Williamstown.For a long time the Shield operated as an Under 14 carnival but it changed to Under 15 to fit in with Cricket Victoria’s Youth Premier League.
The YPL has been phased out and CV last month adopted a new under-age model, bringing the Dowling Shield back to Under 16s for 14 and 15-year-old cricketers.
The Dowling is a feature of a new model in which Premier clubs will control the pathway and develop Academy programs with financial support from Cricket Australia.
The Premier clubs will oversee new Under 18 male and female competitions, the Dowling Shield for boys and the Under 15 Marg Jennings Cup for girls.
But the Subbies board is concerned the standard of the JG Craig Shield will drop if talented 14-year-olds bypass it for Dowling.
One official said that the JG Craig Shield – established as the RM Hatch Shield in 1968-69 – could be left with “leftover players’’.
The board will speak to experienced Craig Shield coaches and team managers as it assesses the “future direction’’ and “future structure’’ of the competition, which is named after legendary Ormond player and VSDCA hall-of-famer John Craig.
“Our hand hasn’t been forced, but the new pathways program brought out by Cricket Victoria has led us to have a think about the JG Craig Shield,’’ VSDCA secretary Ken Hilton tells CODE Sports.
“The fact that all boys aged from 14 to 15 can play in the Dowling causes us a bit of concern.
“Premier Cricket is the top club competition in the state, so parents are perhaps going to be directing their boys into the Dowling program if they’re highly talented Under 15s, rather than the Craig.
“We’ve discussed it with Cricket Victoria and they’ve explained it to the VMCU (Victorian Metropolitan Cricket Union) and ourselves that our role is to feed into the Dowling competition and they still think we’ve got an important role to play.
“But our concern – and we’ve had quite a lot of feedback from clubs – is the quality of our competition could diminish because of boys preferring not to play in the Craig.
“What we’ve decided to do as a board is write to some people who have been involved with the Craig competition for a long time and seek their views on how it should look. Do we look at restructuring it? We’re looking for some feedback.
“With Cricket Victoria making their changes, it’s perhaps a good time for us to have a look at our competition and see whether we need to tinker with it. Because we’ve been playing in a certain format for 40 or 50 years, it doesn’t mean we do it for the next 40 years.
“If the clubs wants a Craig competition – and they’ve indicated to the board that they do – you don’t want it to get stale and tired. You still want it to be relevant in the Cricket Victoria structure.’’
Asked if the Shield could revert to an Under 14 competition, Hilton says such a move could disrupt the VMCU’s junior carnival.
The VMCU runs the Under 14 Russell Allen Shield, as well as the secondary competition, the Des Nolan Cup.
Any top-age Under 14 player picked for his association must play in the VMCU.
“We’ve worked hard in recent years to enforce that and we’ve got a strong relationship with the VMCU,’’ Hilton says.
“If we go back to the Under 14 age group, it would cause great disruption and we don’t really want to do that.’’
The JG Craig Shield is played in January, with all 32 Sub-District clubs entering teams and providing opportunities for almost 500 players.
Hilton says some clubs do it better than others.
“We’ve got a group that do the program really well, very professionally and try to win the competition.
“We’ve got another group of clubs that do a very good job and it’s more of a development program for them, trying to get young players into the club and see if they might be able to turn into senior players down the track.
“And we’ve got another group that struggles with it. They struggle to get kids, they struggle to get volunteers and they do it because it’s a requirement.
“So we have got a big difference across the 32 clubs.’’
Hilton says that whenever polled, all clubs had indicated they wanted to continue with the Shield.
He says the VSDCA had talked of making it optional “but everyone wants to be a part of it’’.
Geelong’s Oliver Peake, rising fast in Premier Cricket, holds the record for the most runs in a Hatch/Craig Shield carnival, with 548 for Plenty Valley in the 2020-21 season.
