Indigenous opportunites

Expanding the Australian domestic season to include early games in the tropical north of Darwin, Cairns and Broome need not be purely about squeezing in more Twenty20 matches. There is an opportunity to further the game as a whole and bring it closer to indigenous communities.

Australian rules football has long stolen a march on Aussie cricket in harnessing the talent of Aboriginal players. Cricket Australia is attempting to address this, but more can be done. Expanding the domestic structure to include the Northern Territory would take the game to the Aboriginal heartland. A six-state competition need not be set in stone. If an even number is required, the Australian Capital Territory (Canberra) could also be included. Aboriginal populations inland in the eastern mainland states would also directly benefit.

Now, football dominates for two simple reasons - money and opportunity. With 16 elite clubs (soon to be 18) and forty-odd players per club, football offers more spots than cricket ever can. A glance through the victorious Australian Under-19 team will show more than one young cricketer still considering the ready-made football alternative. It is time to expand cricket too.

In the decades since the sixth cricketing state was added, Australia's population has about doubled. We are in no danger of having too many teams.

Initially, the territories may struggle, but with assistance to attract overseas and experienced interstate players for the first few years, they may well be competitive. And given time, their rookie system should provide the pathway that young talented Aboriginal cricketers require. For what better cricketing incentive could we offer indigenous Northern Territorians than the chance to play top domestic cricket in Darwin or Alice Springs, rather than relocating half a continent away to Perth or Brisbane?

The same applies for those in the Murray/Darling river basin. To a bush teenager, a move to Canberra may be less overwhelming a change than one to the mega-cities of Sydney and Melbourne. It is time to decentralise cricket in Australia. Let's not just play it in the north, let's grow it there too.