Waughs Won't Get Warm Before Ashes

Newcastle Herald

Friday June 12, 1998

NEWCASTLE District Cricket Association is hopeful of staging a Sheffield Shield match and a Mercantile Mutual Cup one-dayer this summer after the domestic cricket calender was issued yesterday.

Newcastle is not listed as a host for a game in either competition but association secretary Denis Broad said no venues had been decided yet.

Unfortunately, Newcastle will miss the chance to host the touring England Test team as they are not scheduled to play NSW.

The Australian Cricket Board (ACB) said yesterday that it was not concerned at a scheduling quirk likely to have star players like Steve and Mark Waugh entering the first Ashes Test against England without playing in Australia for almost 10 months.

Australian players return from the one-day series in Pakistan on November 12, just eight days before the start of the first Ashes Test against England in Brisbane.

Those returning from the one-day leg of the Pakistan tour won't be available for any domestic cricket before the Ashes.

That means players such as one-day captain Steve Waugh, twin brother Mark and Ricky Ponting would not have played in Australia since the end of the Test series against South Africa in February.

Meanwhile, picturesque North Sydney Oval could be lost as a first-class ground when new national soccer league club Northern Spirit digs up four of its six turf wickets in coming months.

The Spirit has hired the ground from North Sydney Council for its league debut on October 9, five days after NSW and Queensland begin the 1998-99 cricket season with a one-day match there.

The match has become the ACB's traditional domestic season opener and often attracts a crowd of 10,000 or more.

But this year's October 4 match is in some doubt because of the Spirit's plans to `implant' a pitch into the centre square when local cricket club North Sydney has home games.

The Spirit will pay for excavations and replacement pitches but the changes will mean the end of top-level games there.

Last season, NSW played two one-dayers and a Shield match at North Sydney Oval.

The domestic program for the 1998-99 season features a more compact Sheffield Shield season to fit in with an increasingly hectic international schedule.