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From The CEO’s Chair

Newsletter from Chris Rapson Bay of Plenty Cricket Chief Executive

There has been frenetic activity at the Bay Oval since the last CEO newsletter. The new floodlights for night cricket have been installed and tested. It is worth a look at our Facebook page, to see the brilliant photo's that Sandra and Brett Williamson took from the top of Mount Maunganui, the first night that they were turned on.

What a festival of cricket we are about to experience at the Bay Oval in the next three months. West Indies and Pakistan, will provide the T20 entree, to England's ODI against the Black Caps on the 28th February 2018. Expect the full house sign to be put out well before England and the Barmy Army arrive.

Development of the Bay Oval continues at an accelerated pace. The embankment nearest the port, has been extended to take the ground capacity to around the twelve thousand spectator mark. A giant replay screen is being installed, a TV studio is under construction and pedestrian pathways put in place.

ND age-group tournaments have kicked off this week with the Primary competition in Hamilton. Next week(4-8 November 2917) Bay of Plenty Cricket is hosting the ND Junior Secondary tournament in Rotorua. 

Bay Cricket is also hosting the ND Secondary Schoolgirls nine-aside tournament (4-6 November) at Fergusson Park in Tauranga, with Tauranga Boys College First XI playing at the NZ Cricket First Eleven Cup National Finals, in Palmerston North. Age-Group competition is rounded out, later in December, with the ND Senior Secondary title race in Gisborne. 

Next week (3-5 November) also sees the Bay of Plenty Senior Men’s team compete in the annual ND Brian Dunning One-Day tournament in Taupo. This year is pretty much unknown territory with a change of format to Twenty 20 competition. New Head Coach Charles Williams and assistant Russell Williams, have been working with the representative squad on adapting to six games of twenty over per side cricket.

The Richard Hadlee function, where he launched the "The Skipper’s Diary" about his father’s diary of the 1949 New Zealand cricket tour of England, was a real success. Sir Richard said it was the third most successful book launch to just Auckland and his home town of Christchurch.

The Richard Hadlee dinner also launched the Bay of Plenty Cricket Supporters Club. The objectives of the Bay of Plenty Cricket Supporters club are to support cricket (players, teams & the code) in our region and to provide an opportunity for those fans of the game, who no longer play “serious” cricket, to fraternise together and support the code. 

Registrations for the BOPCA Supporters Club can be found on the Bay of Plenty Cricket website at  www.bopcricket.co.nz which contains a myriad of information and news about cricket in the beautiful Bay of Plenty. 

The Bay Oval is playing a huge part in the ICC Under 19 World Cricket Cup being played in New Zealand, in January and February 2018. Two warm-up encounters, six preliminary games along with the Grand Final, will see the countries newest international venue take centre stage during early 2018. 

There is a lot of cricket to watch in the next four months, so remember to cover up and slap on the sunscreen, when out and about at the cricket.