THE eight Cricket NSW Country male academy squads for 2019 have been announced, with the Greater Illawarra Zone's featuring six Shoalhaven products.
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Each squad identifies outstanding and promising cricketers in the under 13 to 19 age groups, representing the eight zones throughout ACT and Country New South Wales.
These squads reward exceptional performances in various underage competitions, within the Cricket NSW and Country Cricket Pathway, as well as those players who show high levels of potential.
The respective zone academies will commence in June and run until late September.
NSW Country coaching and talent manager Brett Rankin explained that the zone academy programs play a major role in the progression of regional cricketers to higher levels.
"It's exciting to see these programs develop players to the stage where they are identified by Cricket Australia for national underage representation," Rankin said.
ACT/NSW Country teams performed exceptionally well last season, named joint winners at the National Male under 17 championships, and winning the under 19 male nationals.
Rankin feels that the commitment of the coaches, players and parents involved in the respective male zone academies has been a key driver in this recent success.
The programs provide particular benefit to coaches.
"These academies provide a fantastic environment for our best regional coaches to learn and skill themselves," he said.
"These coaching opportunities ultimately improves the standard of coaching in regional NSW."
The six Shoalhaven athletes in the 18-person Greater Illawarra squad are North Nowra-Cambewarra's Kaleb Phillips and Hyeon Parsons, Berry-Shoalhaven Heads' Alex Dobson and Tom Fletcher, Shoalhaven Ex-Servicemens' Luke Jones and Batemans Bay's Lachlan Malcolm.
Joining these six in the squad are Illawarra's Jayden Zahra-Smith, Rhys Cattle, Andy Magennis, Ollie Needham, Lyndon Coward, Bailey Abela and Angus Campbell, South Coast's Blake Smith, Liam Mackrell and Isaac Laughton and Southern Highlands' Dominic O'Shannessy and Will Watson.
The other seven academy zones are Central Northern, Western, North Coastal, Newcastle, ACT/Southern Districts, Central Coast and Riverina.