Central Districts posted a surplus of $13,797 last season.

That was down from about $58,000 last year when a one-off grant of $100,000 from New Zealand Cricket (NZC) boosted that figure.

The grant from NZC this year was $50,000 and Central Districts Cricket Association (CDCA) chief executive Blair Furlong felt the return was within expectations.

"We've done OK," he said.

Especially pleasing for the longer term benefit of cricket in the CD region is the continued expansion of the CD charitable trust.

This is a scheme, set up 11 years ago, after NZC made a $50,000 grant to all associations from the proceeds of the 1992 World Cup.

"We put our share into that fund and each year every player in the CD region pays $2 to the trust and it has now up to $400,000. We use that money to make grants to our district associations for their cricket development," Furlong said.

"We are obviously looking to grow that amount because the more funding we get, the more cricket things we can do."

CD has also put in place a development programme for its region, in keeping with the request of NZC for all associations to do that.

It has appointed Nigel Brooke as its development manager. He is based in Levin and he will have eight development managers reporting to him from the district associations.

The programmes will be run as part of the coaching development in each association as they see fit.

"It may be that they appoint someone as an overseer and have him send someone else out to do the development work, or they might appoint someone to take on the overall role themselves.

"It is exciting really. Mark Greatbatch is driving it and it has been accepted well by the associations. It will start earlier than we anticipated and will be fully operational in all districts by October.

"Several of the players who will be running the scheme in the associations are playing overseas at the moment," Furlong said.

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