This is the seventh article, titled Cricket Ministry is all year round.
These 'cricket ministry' articles will take the reader inside the world of cricket including cricket festivals, cricket touring, the early years of cricket chaplaincy and the nature of cricket relationships.
In those years as the Australian Cricket Team chaplain he saw five generations of cricketers come through the Australian cricket team system, in an era after the World Series Cricket and before this new cricket revolution of Twenty/20.
In his era as Chaplain to the Australian XI the Australian Cricket Team captains were Kim Hughes, Allan Border, Mark Taylor and Steve Waugh. In this role he was interviewed by numerous media outlets including television, radio and newsprint.
The seventh article in this Ashes lead-up series, M V Tronson discusses how the Cricket Ministry has developed into an all year engagement.
In 2007, he and his wife, Delma, established the Cricket Family Respite through the AIS athlete respite program at 'Basil Sellers Tweed', with links with the men's and women's cricket units based at the Cricket Centre of Excellence in Brisbane which was initiated in 2006 when they relocated from Moruya to Tweed Heads.
The cricket ministry program was once in full swing from March through to November, and he marked the beginning and end of this 'off season' with the publishing of the Retired Australian Cricketers Bi-Annual Newsletter on 30 March and 30 November. His association with cricketers eased off during the summer of cricket.
The summer cricket season in years past engaged the wider cricket family with either playing or watching the cricket, which was obviously all consuming to the retired cricketers, As the 'national team cricket circus' (Test and One-Day series and Twenty/20) travelled from state to state, so the cricket family gathered for functions and parties. They were not interested in respite or pastoral counselling at that busy time.
While these things still hold true to some extent, as this wider cricket ministry has developed and gained recognition, particularly through the bi-annual retired cricketers' newsletter, so too has the ministry's engagement gathered pace, explained M V Tronson.
Two examples of his cricket ministry illustrates the nature of this quickly expanding all-year notion of Australian cricket activity.
The first was when M V Tronson visited the AIS men's cricket unit where one of the IPL Indian teams was also in training at the Cricket Centre of Excellence.
As these cricketers were engaged in their training schedule in the nets followed by fielding practice, in opposite timeslots to the AIS cricket program, he had opportunity to chat with these Indian lads.
As a field hockey man and author of five books on field hockey, M V Tronson immediately engaged them with a discussion of Indian field hockey which has been in the news on two counts.
Indian hockey had been acclaimed for decades but in recent years have been in the doldrums at international level (has regained some ascendancy in 2010 with Silver at the Commonwealth Games). Then, Australia's Ric Charlesworth's experiment as coach of the Indian Team did not have a happy ending (Charlesworth is now coach of the Kookaburras which recently won the Hockey World Cup in India, the Champions Trophy and the Commonwealth Games).
The nature of cricket was always a year round event with international tours, however with the advent of IPL, the ministry itself has become an all year activity.
The second example, relates to the ongoing correspondence, much of it in the form of emails and text messages M V Tronson receives from the wider cricket family. This in effect has engaged the Cricket Ministry as an all year ministry.
His wife Delma regularly makes hand crafted cards for this ministry in which a letter and a card can make a huge difference and open hearts.
