By Mikayla van Loon
Lilydale Cricket Club has grown over the last year seeing a sixth senior side join the playing group, alongside a junior girls team, an expansion that has been very welcomed.
President Ronen Erulkar said after a reasonably successful last season, the focus this year has been on building a junior player base.
“One of the main aims for this year is to expand our junior base of players. We’re doing a fair bit of work with a lot of the local schools and trying to get a bit more exposure in the local area,” he said.
“We’re just trying to get our numbers up and grow our presence in the area. We obviously want to win on the field but we also want to have a good club environment and make it a good place for local families and parents and everyone to be around.”
Mr Erulkar said expanding to offer a girls team was a major part of this plan having previously had a junior girls team at the club.
“That was a real focus for us as a club to move into the women’s and girls sports space,” he said.
“We had a girls team about five or six years ago but we just couldn’t keep it going. So we wanted to make a real big effort to make sure we got a team up and then we can continue that on.”
Opening more playing opportunities for both young and old was also on the agenda for Lilydale Cricket Club, seeing a mixed age group team join the ranks.
“That team is a mixture of a few of our older senior players and also their kids that play in the juniors.
“So I guess you’d call it a bit of a parents and kids team and that’s how we’ve managed to get the sixth team up, and it gives the kids another game on a Saturday.”
While keen to get the 2022-23 season underway, due to the weather Mr Erulkar said some teams haven’t yet been able to get out onto the field.
“It has been a little bit frustrating. We’ve only managed to get our under 16s on and then our firsts and seconds, which play in the premier grades in the RDCA, they’ve managed to play the last two weeks.
“Unfortunately, our thirds to sixes haven’t been able to play and neither have our under 10s to under 14s.”
This week was no different with only two junior games played across the club, seeing the U16-3s team take on Glen Waverley at Lilydale Reserve and the Stage 1 girls team play Ainslie Park/Croydon Ranges at home.
In the Under 16-3s, Glen Waverley ended up all out for 188, with Lilydale to conduct their run chase next week.
Only the second game for the girls, all got a decent hit, facing around 17 balls each. The team total was 8/66.
Not being able to play hasn’t put a damper on the club environment, seeing over 50 people come to training last Tuesday.
“We had a lot of players keen to play, they’ve still been turning up to training and trying to do all they can around the clock to stay connected. We’re trying to do as much as we can as a committee as well to keep them all engaged.”
This season, while the 1st XI have “got a bit of unfinished business after unfortunately, losing the grand final in a pretty tight game last year”, Mr Erulkar said Lilydale will be focusing on “playing the game the right way” and “making [the club] a really welcoming place for all of our families and supporters”.
