Cricket Shepparton season mapped out for Lakers

All grades — from A through to E — will be playing one-day cricket again this season, with the top pair playing in whites with a red ball before Christmas and joining the other three in colours with a white ball after the holidays.

The structure of the Haisman Shield campaign is different this summer, with plenty of flexibility in the fixture.

Once again, 13 rounds are scheduled in the 13-team competition — with each outfit lining up for 12 matches and a bye — but if the rare possibility eventuates that all of them are able to be completed, the first three will be replayed again to push the campaign out to 16 rounds.

However, a much more likely course of action will be that the three spare weekends before finals begin on March 12 will be used to fit in initial fixtures which are unable to be played for any reason.

"Usually we have to dodge wet weather and severe heat, but these days we have the possibility of losing rounds to COVID as well," Cricket Shepparton president David D'Elia said.

"If one game gets washed out and the rest get on that's just bad luck, but if a full round gets cancelled, we'll slot it in after round 13.

"Obviously if we lose more than three they won't be replayed, and if we lose less than three we will fill the weekends with fixtures from the start of the season again."

This set-up will also carry through to the B-grade fixture, with C, D and E-grade already having a full 16 rounds sketched out.

A, B and C-grade grand finals will be staged on March 26, with the deciders in D and E-grade — which go straight into semi-finals from a top-four system — again set to be played the weekend before.

Round one already looks like a mouth-watering Saturday of Haisman Shield action, with plenty of rivalry contests among the matches.

Numurkah takes on Waaia, Karramomus hosts Tatura and Central Park-St Brendan's battles Old Students in the round, with reigning premier Mooroopna hosting Northerners.

Euroa tackles Katandra and Kyabram faces Nagambie in the other matches, with Shepparton United having to wait another weekend to get started — against Tatura at Howley Oval.

It will be a long build-up to last year's grand final rematch, with the Cats not slated to face the Bombers until round 11 on January 29.

December 18 represents the final round before Christmas, with action resuming on January 8.

But around that time of the summer, the shortest format will be taking centre stage.

The plan for Twenty20 action at club level this season is to host grand finals on January 26 — the Australia Day public holiday.

Up to that time it is expected that clubs will play four matches across each grade, but final details are still being ironed out.

"We want to give clubs the flexibility to play the matches whenever they want to, whether that be on a Thursday night or on a Sunday back-to-back," D'Elia said.

"For example, if Mooroopna and Central Park looked at the Twenty20 draws and saw that they were playing each other in round one of A-grade, two of B-grade and three of C-grade, they could agree to play them all after one another on a Sunday and make a day of it."

Speaking of Twenty20 action, the Goulburn Valley Bush Bash League season structure has also been settled on.

The third iteration of the representative competition will kick off with a draft night on November 12.

Deakin Reserve will host round one action on January 9, with round two pencilled in for January 23 and round three to be staged on February 6.

The final will be held at Deakin Reserve on February 13.

Franchises are expected to announce the members of their respective squads which they will be retaining in the coming weeks.