Townsville welcomes blind cricket

Townsville is about to take a big step forward in cricket inclusivity, with the city set to host a Blind Cricket Come & Try Day at Gill Park on October 12. The event, co-hosted by Queensland Cricket, the Queensland Blind Cricket Association and Townsville Cricket Inc, will formally introduce the Blind Cricket format to the local sporting community.

Although an attempt to organize a similar event last year suffered setbacks due to flight cancellations for visiting players and coaches, six participants still attended, demonstrating the region's growing interest in Blind Cricket. This year, all organizations are committed to building on that foundation and delivering an enhanced experience with some of Queensland's best blind cricket talent.

Thanks to diversity and inclusion funding from Queensland Cricket, the Queensland Blind Cricket Association is sending seven of its seasoned players, including Matt McCarthy and Julie Neumann, the current captains of Australia's national men's and women's Blind Cricket teams. They will be joined by fellow Queensland representatives Chris Gould, Sean Kendrick, Oliver Fanshawe, Raymond Moxley and Nicole Rowling, who have all been key figures in the state team in recent seasons.

The event will include a Come & Try session in the morning, followed by a practice match in the afternoon, mixing the State Blind stars with local talent to showcase the full suite of the Blind Cricket format.

North Queensland Cricket Manager Antony Stewart spoke optimistically about revisiting the initiative despite last year's setbacks.

We had a strong relationship locally with organizations like Vision Australia, so we really wanted to leverage that to introduce Blind Cricket more formally to the Cricket Association. He said.

With Queensland set to host the Blind Ashes on the Gold Coast in November, Blind Cricket is gaining popularity across the state. This event in Townsville is part of wider efforts to expand the reach of the games and provide more opportunities for people with disabilities to enjoy cricket in a competitive and social environment.

Darren Kendrick, the president of the QLD Blind Association, also commented on how expanding the association's program will help discover future talent.

He said our program has had a strong focus on South East QLD for many years.

Activating programs across the state linked to traditional cricket structures will provide blind and partially sighted players the opportunity to participate regularly in our game and our representative program without having to relocate to south-east Queensland, he continued.

The hope is that this event will lay the foundation for Blind Cricket to become a permanent fixture on the Townsville cricket calendar, giving locals an exciting new format to participate in and support, and to look forward to in the future to pursue higher representative distinctions.

Do you think you are eligible to play Blind Cricket competitively? There is a common misconception that players must be completely blind, when in fact players are divided into three categories:

• B1: No light perception in either eye up to or including light perception, but inability to recognize the shape of a hand at any distance or in any direction.
• B2: From the ability to recognize the shape of a hand to a visual acuity of 2/60 and/or a visual field of 5 degrees or less.
• B3: From a visual acuity above 2/60 to a visual acuity of 6/60 and/or a visual field of more than 5 degrees to 20 degrees.

For more information about Come and Try Day, or to confirm your attendance, please contact Antony Steward on [email protected] or 0466 795 648.