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Shield cricket going bush will benefit everyone

The New South Wales take a home game to Coffs Harbour when they take on the Southern Redbacks. (AAP Image/Lukas Coch)
Roar Guru
12th February, 2015
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The World Cup has forced state sides to take Sheffield Shield games away from unavailable Test venues, and the reception to these matches could revitalise the practice of taking Shield matches away from the state capitals to smaller grounds around the country.

Over the next three rounds of Shield cricket matches that would have been played in usual Test venues will be hosted instead by Wagga Wagga, Newcastle, and Bankstown (NSW), Alice Springs (Northern Territory), Glenelg (South Australia), and Allan Border Field in Brisbane.

Robertson Oval in Wagga and Traeger Park in Alice Springs will each host their first-ever Sheffield Shield games, while the other grounds welcome back first-class cricket to their pitches.

While New South Wales are taking their matches far and wide across the state, playing their remaining three home matches in Wagga, Newcastle and Bankstown respectively, other states are choosing smaller venues much closer to home. South Australia and Queensland are temporarily relocating less than 15 kilometres down the road to Glenelg and Albion respectively, while Tasmania and Western Australia aren’t moving at all.

Victoria however, are going even further, taking their home games interstate due to a total absence of first-class grounds. They will take two matches to Alice Springs in the Northern Territory and the other, a fixture against South Australia, to Glenelg.

So why is this such a good result for fans?

Watching a Shield match at the ‘Gabba can be a demoralising experience. It must be the same for the players, playing in cavernous concrete amphitheatres, with the clapping of fewer than 100 people echoing hollowly around the vacant stands.

Allan Border Field, on the other hand, is one of the finest grounds in the country. A wide, expansive field with grassy banks and small grandstands surrounded by a white picket fence is a much more pleasurable location to spend a summer afternoon watching cricket than an empty, soulless football stadium.

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And this is a characteristic that each of the grounds mentioned above share. All relatively small, with large grassy areas surrounding the playing area, this is the perfect environment for the smaller crowds typical at Shield matches to enjoy watching top cricket.

In the English county game, the practice of taking of County Championship (first class) matches to ‘festival grounds’, away from usual home grounds, has been common for over a century. Some counties are scaling back their festival obligations for financial reasons – but plenty of other counties still accommodate ‘festival weeks’ into their schedule.

In the recently announced 2015 County Championship fixtures, the 18 counties will play at 32 different venues throughout the year, with 10 counties playing at least one first-class game at an ‘outground’.

Despite the logistical challenges and costs associated with moving the circus to all corners of the country, the festivals are hugely popular, attracting larger-than-normal crowds. Essex cricket fans protested vehemently when the 2012 Southend Festival was cancelled, bringing a temporary end to 105 years of first-class cricket in the town, illustrating the depth of feeling around these festivals in English cricket.

It should be noted that one reason these festivals exist in England is to accommodate the ever-growing international fixture list among the crowded English domestic calendar – a problem Australia doesn’t have due to the relatively small number of games state sides play.

Despite not sharing the ground problem prevalent in England, why can’t Australian state sides take cricket to their fans more often? Each state covers such a vast area, surely it makes sense to spread the games around a little to include the fans across the states? Country regions in Australia are desperately deprived in terms of their exposure to high-end live sport, and this offers a rare opportunity for fans to witness top players in their own backyard.

By taking Shield games to country towns, state sides are servicing a much broader range of fans than just the state capitals. Perhaps in future seasons Queensland could take matches to Townsville or Cairns? Could Ballarat, Bendigo or Geelong host Victorian games?

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By moving to smaller grounds, even if the actual number of spectators doesn’t increase (although evidence from the UK suggests that it probably will), the atmosphere will drastically improve, making for a better viewing experience for all concerned.

And I’m struggling to see a downside with that.

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