Festival puts down stumps for 2017

Wellington's Amelia Kerr showed promise at the Festival of Cricket in Whanganui, and now she is part of the White Ferns.

The next White Ferns or future age grade Central Districts players will cram virtually an entire representative cricket schedule into a week as the 2017 Festival of Cricket gets underway at Victoria Park tomorrow.

For the next three weeks, there will be a series of youth tournaments at regional and national representative level, starting with the under 18 girls tournament between Whanganui, Manawatu, Taranaki, Hawkes Bay and Wairarapa.

"It's quite good that our [under 18] festival has now become a Central Districts festival," said co-ordinator Dilan Raj.

"All our tournaments are becoming recognised."

As with last year, the Whanganui side will be augmented with spare players from the other minor associations to make up the numbers, most of them likely to be from Manawatu.

The teams will play a combination of Twenty20 games in the morning and 40-over matches in the afternoon.

Central Districts selectors will be on hand and will likely pick the majority of their Under 18 squad based on what they see over the next four days of play.

Raj has always contended that the festival offers a great opportunity for players to develop - any mistakes they make in the morning match can be corrected by that same afternoon, rather than sitting and thinking about it for seven days.

"For some of them, it's like playing a whole season in one week."

After the Under 18 tournament, which finishes on Friday, the crown jewel of the festival begins next Monday with 5th annual New Zealand Under 15 girls competition.

All six associations will be represented, with Central Districts the defending champions after an undefeated run last summer.

They will again be coached by former Wanganui senior women's captain Esther Lanser, who is known for her colourful coaching techniques which involve mediation and yoga sessions.

It will be a very fresh squad trying to retain the title given 6-8 players from last year's team aged out of Under 15 after winning the tournament as well as coming runnerup the previous season.

Raj points to the tournament as being one of the proving grounds for top talent, such as excellent Wellington spinner Amelia Kerr, who was called into the White Ferns this October at the age of 16.

Whanganui's own Jessica Watkin, a New Zealand A representative and part of the White Ferns training group, is another to use the festival to keep honing her game.

Following the girls tournaments, there will be a series of boys tournaments, starting from Under 13 through to Under 15/16 development, each running for four days and finishing on January 20.

These will be a mixture of representative and invited club teams.

Player accommodation is provided by Whanganui Girls' College Ad Astra Hostel, which housed and fed squads for the first time at the last festival.