HKCA releases 2010-11 fixtures for men's cricket

The HKCA has today released the fixtures for men's Saturday and Sunday cricket for the 2010-11 season. There are a number of notable changes to the fixtures on both days as described below.

On Saturdays, the Police CC has withdrawn from the Saturday League competition and their place is taken up by Taipan CC, who have been regular participants in the social/challenge league over the past few years.

The withdrawal of the Police CC team also means that the Police Training College ground will no longer be available on a regular basis for matches. However, the ground loss will be compensated by the return of Po Kong Village Ground, which has been transformed into a state-of-the-art sports stadium with a fully artificial surface, lighting, electronic scorecard, dual cricket nets, changing rooms with rentable lockers, toilets and showers and other modern facilities. The PKVR Stadium will be commissioned on 1st September and will be available to the HKCA for cricket every Saturday afternoon and on the first Sunday of each month. More details about the new PKVR Stadium will be published in a separate story.

The first matches of the 2010-11 Saturday League season will be played on 11th September 2010. All teams will play 14 regular matches (i.e. 35 overs per side), which is four more games or 40% more than last season. There will be a play-off series at the end of the round robin matches, however the dates for this have not yet been established.

Link: 2010-11 HKCA Saturday League Fixtures

Sunday will see the greatest change. While there are no changes to the teams playing, 2010-11 will see the start of a new Twenty20 competition for Sunday teams - to be called the Sunday Cup. The Sunday League (50 overs per side) and Sunday Cup (Twenty20) competitions will run simultaneously, so teams will play different formats of the game throughout the season. Generally, on days when Sunday Cup matches are scheduled, two matches will be played on the same day, with the first match played between 10AM and 1PM and the second match played from 1:30PM to 4:30PM. All teams, at some time during the season, will be required to play back-to-back Cup matches on the same day.

The majority of Sunday Cup games will be played in the early part of the season so that players will get plenty of practice in that format of the game leading up to the Asian Games in November.

The first matches of the Sunday League competition will be played on 19th September while the first Sunday Cup matches will be played on 26th September. All teams will play 22 matches, including ten Sunday Cup matches and twelve Sunday League matches. A play-off series for the Sunday League, will be played at the end of the round robin matches.

Finally, the start time for regular Sunday League matches (i.e. the 50-overs per side games) has been moved forward to 10AM, with a finish time of 5PM.

Related Links: 2010-11 HKCA Sunday League Fixtures | 2010-11 HKCA Sunday Cup Fixtures

Rules and other information for the 2010-11 season are currently being finalised and will be distributed to teams shortly.

Fixtures for the HKCA Women's League and Cup will be released soon.