Tara Murray
It’s the beginning of a new era for Laverton in the Victorian Turf Cricket Association Evans-Clark Shield competition.
After a couple of tough years after Covid, the club has a new president and a new coach as it aims to rise back up the ranks.
New president Rahul Anhal said it’s an exciting time for the club.
“It’ll be a landmark year,” he said. “I’ve taken over the presidency and have been changing a few things around, especially around the juniors.
“Since the Covid, the club has struggled a little bit, it used to be in division 1 years ago.”
Anhal said they had three areas they were looking to improve this season.
The first was getting a junior program back up and going.
Last year, it failed to field a junior side. This season, Laverton is likely to have six junior sides from under-10s through to under-18s.
“They are the next generation,” Anhal said. “We believe in nurturing young talent and providing them with the skills and opportunities to shine in cricket.
“We’ve put in a lot of work to get that going again.”
Anhal said they were also working on the financial side of things and had been able to get some new sponsors. which would benefit the club in the long term.
He said with the growth of the club they also had access to more ovals to cater for everyone.
The other main thing the club is aiming for is to get its senior program back on track.
Karandeep Singh comes across from Point Cook and will take on the senior coaching role.
Anhal said they hadn’t had a senior coach for a few seasons. The club has also announced a number of new signings as well.
“Karandeep has been playing seniors and was an assistant coach at Point Cook,” he said
“We’ve got some good signings as well. We’ve got some players across from overseas and we’ve got a couple across from other clubs.
“We want to turn the tables around.”
Laverton finished second bottom with just three wins for the season.
Anhal said they didn’t want to be in that position again and were hoping to be in contention come the end of the season.
“We’re looking to do the right things and put ourselves in a position to be competitive and far better than the last two seasons.
“We’ve got a coach now and juniors coming in. We’ll have some youth coming through which is exciting as well.”
