How the WDCA season will take shape this summer

There's not yet promotion and relegation for clubs to aspire towards, but there's every indication it could arrive in the near future.

There's still a suite of tweaks to wade through, however. Just what will it mean for you, your club and spectators?

The Standard has broken down just how the upcoming season will look for clubs and players.

The Warrnambool and District Cricket Association didn't start until very late October this past season as a result of Victoria's extensive COVID-19 lockdown to squash the second wave of the virus.

This coming season, however, is likely to start much earlier. The season is likely to start on October 9, coronavirus restrictions pending.

This will give the board more flexibility to be agile in relation to fixturing if the state is plunged into yet another lockdown.

"We had staggered starts planned for divisions but we had to put that one back a week and start them all together," WDCA chairman Gordon McLeod said.

"(An earlier start) will give us a bit more surety about not being affected by other restrictions until we get the real opening up."

Division one will again be a 10-team competition with the same clubs which competed this past season, with the exception being North Warrnambool Eels. The Eels are a new identity spawned from Woodford, this past season's beaten two-day grand finalist, and ex-Grassmere Cricket Association club Wangoom.

They will play one-day and two-day games.

Division two will be a conference system, with eight teams in each. They will also play one-day and two-day games.

The seconds will not play Twenty20 fixtures but clubs like Southern Titans, Nirranda, Koroit, Hawkesdale and Northern Raiders will have the chance to compete in a standalone short-form competition which will pit them against division one outfits.

Division three and four - which will host 26 teams between them - will be entirely one-day cricket.

"Clubs will be divided up into how we see the best fit into either division three or four," McLeod said.

"Spring Creek, for example, will have a team in division three and a team in division four. Hawkesdale, for example, is also a new club to the association and they're in division two and three.

"Some clubs have teams in division one, two, three and four - the bigger clubs - and some have them in division two and three, and so forth.

"We've tried to manage them where we see they best fit and take into account things like performance from this past season."

The season will begin with one-day cricket but more two-day cricket - which was a request from many clubs through the winter - will absolutely take place.

Two-day fixtures are expected to begin prior to Christmas, which is a major boost for cricket traditionalists. Feedback from clubs was that more 80-over cricket was preferred due to the fact the March premiership, which is still considered the Warrnambool and District Cricket Association's holy grail, is in the two-day format.

The association's shortest format has undergone a major overhaul. Previously, the chance to qualify for the Sungold Cup finals was reserved purely for division one teams.

This coming season, the floodgates have been opened and the newly-standalone Twenty20 competition will be open to any of the association's 16 clubs.

Twenty20 fixtures will no longer offer up premiership points. There will be four groups of four teams - assuming each club enters - and the top team from each will advance to a semi-final after playing three round robin-style games against the teams in their pool.

It means the top two teams, those who play in the Warrnambool and District Cricket Association grand final, will advance to contest the Sungold Cup. In previous years, only one WDCA side has been afforded the chance to advance to play for the $15,000 prize.

The demise of the Grassmere Cricket Association, however, and the fact many of its clubs went into the WDCA, convinced organisers to give the league another spot.

"The first one will be on a Thursday night in December," McLeod said.

"Then there's a double-header on a Saturday - which will be the last Saturday before Christmas - which will give each club their three games.

"The top team in each of the four pools will then play semi-finals on the first weekend back after Christmas. That's when we have tick off from Warrnambool City Council that Reid Oval will be available."

The WDCA in previous seasons has been keen to push turf-wicket cricket. That hasn't changed.

But its decision to be more receptive to hard wicket games early in the season - particularly in October when the weather is still temperamental - means early one-day games could indeed take place on artificial surfaces.

McLeod said clubs who had turf wickets ready were more than welcome, with WDCA approval, to use them through October.

McLeod has confirmed promotion and relegation won't be implemented this coming season, but hinted this season's standings could be used as part of a discussion around any future promotion or relegation decisions.

It means a points system, for example, could be implemented which would prevent teams from suffering relegation from one poor season.