The future of cricket is looking very bright in the Southern Highlands.
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The Mittagong RSL has granted $2288 to the Highlands District Cricket Association (HDCA).
Chairman of the HDCA Simon Taufel has the parents of young cricketers in mind with this money.
"The funding will be going directly to help with match day uniforms," Taufel said.
"The representative juniors will wear these and that will lower the cost impact on parents. It also makes cricket more affordable which then opens up more access to the junior cricket to the public."
The funding was allocated through an application process called the Club Grant Scheme. This allows grassroots sporting clubs to apply for money that is needed.
"The Mittagong RSL participates in the scheme and we applied through it," Taufel said.
"Luckily the board was receptive to our application and we thank them for it. We hope to make junior cricket more accessible and then hopefully we'll get more representative players coming through the ranks."
Vice president of the Mittagong RSL Club Roger Cole has some very high hopes for the future of cricketers in the Southern Highlands.
"It would be great to foster a future champion," Mr Cole said.
"Hopefully they will have the chance to become a state representative or better than that, an Australian representative.
"We'd love to see someone playing in Lords from the Highlands at some future stage. That would be great."
Coach of last year's champion under 18 side Jack Whitfield believes grassroots cricket in the Highlands is continually on the way up.
We'd love to see someone playing in Lords from the Highlands at some future stage.
- Roger Cole
"We had six boys from that champion squad go through to the zone side for higher honours," Mr Whitfield said.
"That's a pretty good strike rate for our association.
"We've got a lot of young fellas with a lot of promise coming through the Highlands. Players such as Jack Preddy, Ben Tucker and Ryan Emmerick who just returned from an England tour are cricketers to keep your eye on.
"That's great levels of cricket for our association. I always feel we punch well about our weight in what we produce talent wise.
"Hopefully that will continue and this money helps that."
