New direction for local Pathway Programs and competitions

Cricket ACT (CACT) has announced a series of changes to be introduced for local Pathway Programs and competitions aimed at enhancing player experiences and opportunities. 

The changes for 2024/2025 come after a full review of competition structures, pathways program performance, and in consultation with high performance coaches and community cricket stakeholders.  

Key improvements include: 

• Enhancement of Pathways Programs and clarity around the purpose of the Colts competition  

• Upgrade of coach to player ratio from 1:10 to 1:5 (within squad environments) 

• New emerging Comets and Meteors competitions, to guide National Championship squad selection  

• Integration of synthetic pitch use into both Pathways Programs and Junior Cricket 

Pathways Program: age squads combined into Emerging Talent squads

The Pathway Program will have a reduced player footprint from previous years for pre-season programs, with a combined talent squad of Under-17 Male/Under-16 Female and Under-19 athletes. 

These squads have been selected by CACT High Performance coaches based on talent identification, performance within Premier cricket, last year’s National Championships, and Under-16 trial matches. 

Players selected for this program are considered to be the best talent in the ACT within these age groups for the coming season. 

Combining the age group squads into a single program will result in a more concentrated coach-player ratio, improving from one coach for every ten players last season to one coach for every five players for this streamlined program. 

The changes to the Pathways Programs also come with new competitions designed to support selection for National Championships: 

Colts Competition: clarity of role within Junior Cricket 

The Colts competition sits within the CACT Junior Cricket competition structure that in turn sits within the Community cricket space. The Colts divisions, like all junior cricket competitions, has a specific objective to grow, nurture and promote ongoing participation whilst providing quality experiences for players of all levels and abilities. These objectives align directly with CACT’s Strategic Plan. 

To achieve this outcome, the competition will revert to Sundays, played as 40-overs per side and predominantly on synthetic wickets - with the option of playing on turf wickets if available. The change also brings the Colts competitions in line with CACT premier cricket competitions (third and fourth grade), which are also played as 40-over one-day games. 

Players currently playing with either the ACT Meteors or Comets will not be eligible to play Colts cricket from this season, while players selected in Under-19 squads for National Championships will need to gain exemption from the CACT Competition Manager. 

Further rationale: 

The current Colts competition is not designed to serve as an elite junior competition, due to its position within the CACT Community Cricket structure. It is designed to promote ongoing participation and quality experiences for all players. 

CACT will maintain a junior Colts competition that sits separate to the Elite Pathway but still provides playing opportunities against their peers. This separation also provides clarity for our community on the representative selection processes that underpin our National Underage Championship teams.  

Synthetic wickets: the rationale behind the move for Pathways and Colts competitions 

There are a number of reasons supporting the move to synthetic wickets, which will impact Pathways, Colts, and also Stage 3 Junior cricket, that will result in an improved playing experience: 

• During the coming 2024/2025 season, there will be four turf wickets unavailable due to upgrade works. Recent independent assessment indicates that our turf wickets in the ACT are suffering from chronic overuse, and a program for renovation is long overdue and is likely to run over several seasons.  

• Recent research suggests that a variety of surfaces and methods for both playing and training in cricket is important to increase levels of adaptability, which leads to better players, especially for batters. Overall synthetic wickets do provide a different challenge for bowlers and batters for a variety of reasons. 

• The current Cricket Australia Guidelines for white-ball wickets to be rated as ‘good’ are fast and bouncy surfaces that allow 360° scoring for batters and provide minimal help for bowlers.  

• Synthetic pitches are closer to what our representative squads will encounter on harder, bouncier, more consistent turf wickets in Adelaide, Perth and Brisbane, where Cricket Australia have indicated most Under-19 National Championships will be played in the coming years. 

• “MS Dhoni, with whom I worked in India, is a good example of a batter who developed his talent and learned to play in this fashion. By competing against more experienced individuals on a variety of surfaces early in his development, Dhoni developed the decision-making and strategic skills that have set him apart from many of his peers.” – Greg Chappell 

Further evidence on the development benefits of synthetic wickets 

• First hybrid cricket surface in India marks game’s evolution (2024) 

• Developing young cricket players on synthetic turf wickets (2020) 

• Greg Chappell: Highly structured coaching dehumanises cricket. Here's what we should be doing instead (2022) 

• Journal of Expertise: Is Optimizing Challenge Key in the Development of Super-Elite Batters? (2020) 

• Does playing surface make a difference to fast bowlers in cricket? (2015) 

• Journal of Expertise: Talent Identification and Development in Male Cricket: A Systematic Review (2023) 

• A constraints-led perspective to understanding skill acquisition and game play: a basis for integration of motor learning theory and physical education praxis? (2007)