Photo / Pukekohe Metro Cricket Facebook

The Counties Manukau Cricket season is set to get underway next week with December 4 scheduled to host the opening day’s play assuming the region moves to the new traffic light COVID system as planned.

Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern announced on Monday that the whole of New Zealand would move to the new COVID Protection Policy (or traffic light system) from 11.59pm next Thursday, December 2.

Should that be confirmed, the cricket season will start immediately next week.

“We are all looking forward to getting back on the park,” Counties Manukau Cricket Association Cricket Manager Andy Napier told Counties Sports Hub.

“I cannot thank CMCA Club and Community Co-ordinator Louise Gavin enough for all of her hard work pulling together this draw while dealing with the constant uncertainty that COVID has thrown at us.

“I also want to thank the clubs and players for their patience and their understanding as we have had to plan and re-plan schedules based on return dates.”

The Premier competition is likely to begin with Inder Lynch T20 play, which will see the six leading sides starting with the shortest format of the game.

The T20 tournament will continue with an additional weekend (Saturday and Sunday) in late January, with teams playing five round robin games and then a final across the three playing days.

The Premier teams will move into Spark Regional Competition play, involving teams from Counties Manukau, Hamilton and Waikato Valley, from December 11 until January 15. There will be a two-week break over Christmas-New Year.

The Duthie Cup one-day competition and W.H Taylor Shield two-day competitions will follow from late January through the end of the season.

There will be grading rounds in Senior A, Senior B and T20 grades before the competitions are split into Championship and Plate divisions.

Finals in those grades will take place on the first weekend of April.

In all, four weeks of the competition have been lost to COVID but Monday’s announcement gives plenty of hope that the rest of the season will now be possible.