Wet weather threatens weekend's Indigenous Twenty20 tournament

WITH rain around, and plenty more of it to come, Wade Park curator Bruce Cousins has his work cut out getting the ground up to scratch for this weekend’s Sydney Thunder versus Sydney Sixers Indigenous Tournament.

Still, Thunder general manager Nick Cummins is confident the former NSW Country Cricket curator of the year can do so, because he’s champing at the bit to have the competition go ahead.

Squads from the Thunder and Sixers, made up of entirely Indigenous players from all over the state, go head-to-head this weekend in three Twenty20 clashes at Wade Park - two on Saturday, and one on Sunday.

The 2015 tri-series is the first of what Cummins and Sixers GM Dom Remond hope will become an annual event, forging a second pathway to elite cricket for Indigenous cricketers outside the Imparja Cup.

“In my view, the role for T20 cricket generally in Australia is to keep the younger generations interested in, and involved in, cricket in general,” Cummins said.

“And it gives us the opportunity to do something cricket certainly hasn’t done as well as the football codes have in engaging the Indigenous community.

“We have the Imparja Cup, but there’s no T20 specific format so hopefully this is the first step in a long engagement.

“The players are certainly excited I know that ... we’re really excited actually to have the tournament at Wade Park, and Orange, being in the Sydney Thunder Zone.

“We’re really looking forward to hopefully having the whole of Orange get behind the concept.”

“We’re very excited as well, it’s a great concept and a great initiative in engaging the wider Indigenous community,” Remond said.

“This is the first, the inaugural one, and obviously we’ll look to expand and grow with it each year to continue building and developing that pathway.”

The two sides have been selected after a number of trials across the state and will boast a number of NSW Imparja Cup players, along with several former NSW representatives.

The Thunder and Sixers will be led by their respective community rookies Jonte Pattison and Brett Russell.

“Obviously we split NSW into the Sixers and Thunder zones, but for this we will spread the talent out a bit to ensure competitive games of cricket,” Remond said.

“And it will be high quality cricket too, we’ve got a lot of really good players coming down. There’s the Imparja talent and some former state under-19 representatives coming as well.”

Saturday’s games kick off at 1pm and 6pm, before Sunday’s clash at 10am.

matt.findlay@fairfaxmedia.com.au