By Kim Waters
VANDALS have destroyed eight turf wickets at three western suburbs cricket grounds in a significant blow to players gearing up for finals matches.
United Churches Cricket Association’s turf wickets at Pennell Reserve in Braybrook, Angliss Reserve in Yarraville and St Pauls College in Altona North were vandalised on Sunday 8 March.
Cricketers and club members found the ruined pitches two hours before last week’s semi-final match. With cricketers unable to play, matches were cancelled.
Association president Claude Dunn told Star that vandals had dug holes every five feet along the strips of turf wicket at the three grounds.
“They damaged the turf on the four main strips and the adjacent strips, so it was eight patches that were destroyed,” Mr Dunn said. “They also wrecked a wicket cover, which costs about $1000.”
Mr Dunn said the cost of the damage hadn’t been totalled.
“We’ve done some work to repair the damage but we aren’t sure how much our curators will charge us to fix it properly,” he said.
Altona North Police Sergeant Michael Avery said he had not seen a targeted vandalism attack of this nature before.
“At this stage we don’t have any new information on the case,” Sgt Avery said. “These type of investigations are run purely from the public’s perspective where we ask the public to be the investigators. In situations where it could be a targeted attack or a vendetta against a group or association we really need the public to report any conversations they have overheard, anything suspicious they have seen or any rumours they know of.”
Mr Dunn said players and club members were devastated by the vandalism, which left teams stranded without grounds for their semi-finals match.
“When we arrived Monday morning before the match it was utter chaos,” he said. “We couldn’t move the teams or repair the wickets so we had to call it a draw. Players have felt terrible; they are very much up in arms about it.”
Mr Dunn said the locations of new grounds selected for the remaining finals matches were being kept a secret for fear of more vandalism.
“It’s a really horrible situation because all the grounds except Yarraville are open areas so anyone can walk in. To protect the grounds properly we would have to place security guards there all night and that would cost a fortune.”
