Sydney Grade Cricket

Sydney Grade Cricket is a cricket competition played in Sydney, Australia. As of the 2016-17 season, Sydney Grade Cricket is now referred to as NSW Premier Cricket. The name change was part of a Cricket Australia initiative to standardise the naming of the elite men's cricket competition within each state's capital city. The competition began in 1893 when a number of clubs, which had been playing for many years on an ad hoc basis, voted to create a formal competition structure.

This competition has grown substantially since its formation and by the start of the 21st century the Sydney Grade Cricket Competition encompassed 20 clubs. In the late 1990s there was a structural reform of the competition with a number of club mergers (such as the merger of Randwick and the Petersham-Marrickville clubs), the renaming of clubs to reflect their wider representation (Waverley renamed as Eastern Suburbs) and the inclusion of clubs from the second-tier shires competition (such as Blacktown). Each of the 20 club fields a side in each of the five senior grades as well as a side in the Poidevin-Gray Shield and AW Green Shield junior competitions.

The Sydney grade cricket competition is played on Saturdays and begins on the last Saturday of September and continues until the grand final is played on the first weekend of April. Spectators are few and far between at matches, with less than 50 people on average. Almost all are family members, partners or club members. The exception to this is at T20 matches which can attract crowds into the hundreds and the occasional one in the early thousands.

In recent times some clubs have started broadcasting scorecards in real-time on the Cricket Australia website. Some clubs also have detailed video and photographs each weekend. Most but not all clubs actively update their website and have information across a variety of social media platforms.

Players for the NSW team are selected from the first-grade competition. While modern day cricketers have few breaks outside the international calendar, when they do NSW players often return to play in the first-grade competition. Sydney grade cricket also has a proud history of welcoming budding, current or former first-class and Test cricketers from around the world. Players are primarily sourced from England's county competition. In 2015-16, there were over 10 players in the competition plying their trade in the first-grade competition. In the late 1990s Kevin Pietersen and Andrew Strauss among others played seasons in Sydney. Such is the strength of the competition that some players have been known to play multiple matches in second grade.

To address shortcomings in players making the transition from first-grade to State cricket, two seasons ago a different type of ball was introduced into the first-grade competition. This ball is the same used by state players but had not previously been used due to its cost (A$150 each). While the ball is still a four-piece ball, its seam is less pronounced and more difficult to swing. Bowlers, in particular fast bowlers, have had to work much harder at getting wickets. Since its introduction scores within the competition have increased. There have been higher team and individual scores (400+ scores by teams are not the rare occurrence they once were).

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