Bathurst District Cricket Association waiting to see if winter sport delays will restrict George Park's preparation

As Central West AFL awaits guidance from their governing body on what to do regarding their season it's forcing Bathurst District Cricket Association to sit back and await news.

The start of BDCA's season could be affected by how late winter competitions are willing to run their seasons, but until a clearer picture on sporting shutdowns is realised there's little they can plan for according to president Campbell Graham.

"Until the winter sports decide what they're going to do we've got our hands tied. Ultimately the decision will come down to Bathurst Regional Council because they allocate the grounds to specific codes," he said.

"I haven't had talks with any winter sports club or with council to see what we'd do.

"Normally there's a three to four week period where councils prepare the grounds for cricket. If they keep using George Park up until September and early October then that means you're not using those grounds for cricket until at least early November."

The BDCA, like many associations across the country, had their finals series across all grades cut short due to the virus.

Graham said there's more flexibility in trying to restructure the start of a season as opposed to finals, which is one positive he's always keeping in mind.

"We were already impacted in 2019-20 when we couldn't finish our finals series. But it's a lot easier to work with an impacted start to a season as opposed to an end," he said.

"You can manipulate a draw to suit most things but you can't do that for finals. A lot of guys want byes anyway and it can lead to a reduced season but I'm sure we wouldn't get too many complaints about that."

Now that the 2019-20 season has been wrapped up early there's still the question of when and how a presentation night might be done.

There's no chance of gathering players during venue lock downs but the association is hopeful of eventually holding a presentation night, no matter how late it may be.

"We'll announce our winners online but the presentation night is a big deal for us because we induct our hall of fame members and roll of honour achievers, so to put something like that aside is really hard at the moment," he said.

"We threw around the idea of a pre-season presentation, maybe something around August or September but that will depend on what venues are available or how long COVID-19 hangs around for. It's the big unknown."

The association looked at ways to award winners sooner but they weren't viable.

"I'd floated the idea initially of giving the individual winners their trophies to their clubs, but the clubs can't hold their presentations either," Graham said.

"Everyone's in limbo. We've thrown ideas around but we can't even hold a meeting to discuss our ideas with delegates. We can't plan for anything at this stage until restrictions are lifted.