Harper Sercombe
It’s the dawn of a new era at the Greenvale Kangaroos ahead of the 2023-24 Victorian Premier Cricket season.
With an array of new players and coaches the club is ready to begin its rebuild as excitement levels in and around the club begin to rise.
“The club’s undergone significant change with the playing list and coaching structure so like all pre-seasons it’s been a lot of work,” Kangaroos’ director of coaching Ash Cavigan said.
“We’re pleased that we’ve been able to stabilise things and settle a new group in and we’ve been really happy with the boys all pre-season, giving great effort.
“Now it’s about switching into competition mode and seeing where we’re at.”
Amongst the list changes at the club includes, top order batsman and Sri Lankan first class cricketer Damith Perera.
“It was really, really exciting and pleasing to get that through,” Cavigan said.
“It was good to secure him, an experienced player, a class player so he’s going to be really important for what will be a really young team.”
Another massive signing for the club was acquiring Justin Galeotti as first XI captain. Galeotti is formerly from the Clarence Cricket Club in Tasmania and was a part of the Essendon Cricket Club as a first XI player in the VPL.
“He’s hit the ground running with his leadership which is what I expected, which is great,” Cavigan said.
Other players in the mix to play first XI cricket at the Kangaroos include, young top order batsman Lishan De Silva, Praveen Dilanka from Frankston Peninsula, young leg spinner Ivan Zmak, Jordan Kosteas and Kalhan Sineth from Elsternwick.
With the Kangaroos finishing the 2022-23 season in last place, there is only room to grow and the club is embarrassing this, using the upcoming season to put the foundations in place to be able to bear the fruits of their hard work in the years to come.
“Just providing a really good environment for the boys to play their cricket, that’s pretty much been our focus,” Cavigan said.
“Get good people into the coaching group, so they can recruit young talent and just provide a great place for them to play cricket, that’s going to be year one for us really.
“We’re going to be really young, which means that’s more development more than anything else, there’s going to be lots of highs and lows with that.
“As long as they’re enjoying their cricket and they feel like the club is providing them with what they need to play their best cricket and be good young men.
“From there we’ll add talent, that’s our strategy.
“Every week’s going to be tough for us, it’s a tough competition, so we’ll just do our best and tick off the things that we think are important for us and learn and get better.”
The Kangaroos will open their summer campaign this weekend against Prahran.
