Tara Murray
Sydenham-Hillside Cricket Club members were left unimpressed after vandals damaged their wicket at Hillside Recreation Reserve last week.
Members were alerted to the damage on Wednesday night and spent much of the rest of the week trying to make the wicket playable for matches on the weekend.
Storm president Warren Hackney said they believed the damage was caused by dirt bikes.
Mr Hackney said the damaged had reported to police.
“They turned their attention to the centre wicket,” he said on Thursday.
“It’s pretty frustrating with all the work that goes into improving wickets and making them ready for the weekend.
“It puts a lot more strain on the volunteer workforce, hopefully it’s not a regular occurence.”
Mr Hackney said the damage wouldn’t affect training, but he was unsure whether two matches scheduled for the weekend would go ahead at the ground.
He said there was still a fair bit of work needed to repair the wicket.
Mr Hackney said there had been issues with people riding dirt bikes around the area illegally.
“We have been concerned for quite a while that this could happen,” he said.
“There’s a lot of grounds in the area surrounded by fence lines that provide a lot of security, but ours isn’t one of them.
“Hopefully we can work with the council to improve the ground security.”
The ground didn’t have CCTV footage.
Melton council operations manager Brendan Sell said ensuring local safety and amenities is the council’s priority and any illegal activity that occurs at community recreation reserves is reported to Victoria Police.
“Dirtbike riding at our local recreation reserves has not been highlighted as a major issue for some time,” he said.
“While it’s a priority is to maintain a high level of playable space within the playing field, these areas are also required to be accessible for all, including wheelchair users and in some circumstances prams, making it a challenge to secure this sort of public open space.”
Tara Murray
