Tournament planning checklist, six weeks out to first ball.
Phase by phase from booking grounds to the morning of the first match. Covers the budget lines organizers forget and the decisions that have to be in writing before registration opens.
Progress
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Six weeks out
0/5Grounds are the only genuinely inflexible input, so everything else waits on them.
Five weeks out
0/5Three weeks out
0/5Two weeks out
0/6Match week
0/6Your ticks are saved in this browser on this device. Nothing is uploaded and there is no account.
What does a tournament planning checklist cover?
A cricket tournament planning checklist runs in five phases: six weeks out, book grounds and fix the budget and entry fee; five weeks, publish playing conditions and open registration; three weeks, close registration and run the auction or draw; two weeks, publish fixtures and confirm umpires and scorers; match week, check equipment, confirm officials and brief the scorers.
Work backwards from match day
Every organizer plan that fails forwards fails the same way: the dates get announced, then the grounds turn out to be booked. Book first, advertise second.
The reasoning behind each phase, including the full budget breakdown and what has to be in writing before registration opens, is on the six-week organizer guide.
The two dependencies in the final fortnight
If there is an auction, the last two weeks carry two hard dependencies: the auction cannot run until registration is verified, and the fixture list means nothing until the auction has produced squads.
That is why registration closes five days before the auction rather than the night before. Compressing it is the most common way a tournament arrives at auction day with an unverified pool. Registration checklist and auction day checklist.
Planning checklist FAQ
What is the first thing to do when planning a tournament?
Book grounds. Format, team count and dates are all downstream of what slots you can secure, so advertising a tournament before the grounds are confirmed means rebuilding the plan when they are not available.
Which budget line is most often underestimated?
Balls. A tournament gets through more than expected and running out mid-afternoon stops play. Budget two per match plus a reserve, and buy them before match week rather than on the morning.
Does this checklist save my progress?
Yes, in your browser’s local storage on the device you use it on. Nothing is uploaded and there is no account.