An anticipated 25mm of rain is estimated to fall across the Greater Shepparton region on Wednesday (October 12), with a high chance of 40mm to fall on Thursday.
Cricket Shepparton president Brandan Reilly said at this stage the league was willing to hold fire and hope for the best in the coming days.
“The plan is to get covers to go down tonight in the hope that the rain blows around us over the next few days,” Reilly said.
“But it is very unlikely looking at the forecast, so we will wait and see what rain we get tomorrow and if we get the 25mm on Wednesday we’ll look to pull the pin that night.
“If we don’t receive that inch of rain, we will try and push on and hope for the best on Thursday and see if we can get some grounds up.”
Because of a less-than-expected amount of rainfall last week, Reilly said the league was willing to make a call on this weekend’s fixtures later than the week previous.
“We’re willing to leave it a bit later because we didn’t get the rain we were forecast to get last week, most of our clubs were able to get our rollers out onto the wicket,” he said.
“If we had have gotten the full complement of rain expected last week we would have pulled the pin last night.
“The strong feeling for me is that we’ll be pulling the pin again, it makes it hard, but there’s not much you can do about Mother Nature.”
Following a round one washout, Reilly said the league would aim to make a call as early as possible to provide notice to all players and officials.
“I like to be early as it shows our curators and our volunteers the respect, so that they’re able to plan their weekends accordingly as well,” Reilly said.
“It gives our players and volunteers a chance to make the most of the weekend.”
The league also announced on Saturday a handful of changes to its junior season due the early wet weather disruptions.
The under 14s and 16s season will start a week later, with the 16s to commence with a T20 game on Friday 21.
The 14s will get the season underway with a 25 over one day game on Saturday 22.
Meanwhile the under 12s’ season will get underway on Friday 21 and the under 10s on Wednesday, November 2.
