The quality of the Canberra first-grade cricket competition is declining as a result of Cricket Australia's guidelines as to how Cricket ACT selects the ACT Comets team.
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Just three players from the Canberra competition - a record low - are in the Comets line-up for Monday's four-day Futures League match against Tasmania at Manuka Oval.
Players will be given the option of sitting out the game or attending the funeral of Phillip Hughes on Wednesday, while a replacement or rest day is also being considered.
Eastlake batsman Michael Spaseski has been dropped from the Comets team after struggling for runs in the previous two Futures League games and one-day fixtures against Ireland and Afghanistan.
Spaseski had no issue with his non-selection given his failure to score runs for the Comets this summer, despite scoring 470 runs for Eastlake at an average of 78.33.
"I don't think the selectors look at the club cricket as closely as they used to," Spaseski said.
"The standard is getting worse around Canberra, so the clubs aren't too much of a selecting point for them, that's purely just because of the standard dropping in the last few years.
"It's moved towards the Comets aren't going to pick anyone who is playing in Canberra.
"Everyone who wants to pursue a career pretty much has to move out of Canberra so that's always going to hurt the club scene around here."
Spaseski has had scores of
His absence leaves Dean Solway (Queanbeyan), Josh Bennett (Eastlake) and Vele Dukoski (Eastlake) as the Canberra-based players in the Comets team.
Others such as Matt Condon (Wests/UC), Shane Devoy (Tuggeranong), Beau McClintock (Wests/UC) and Josh Connolly (Queanbeyan) have moved to the Sydney grade competition to play at a higher standard.
Comets coach Mark Higgs said there were fairly strict guidelines from Cricket Australia as part of the goal to see players progress to the first-class arena.
"We're really trying to target players who can go on and play first-class cricket," Higgs said.
"We've been given pretty strict guidelines on what we're trying to do and what we're trying to achieve.
"Our first and foremost is to play good cricket, but it's also to provide cricketers for Australian cricket.
"It comes from Cricket Australia through Pat Howard and it's about us being viable.
"The Comets program is a reasonably expensive program to run when you put in all the travel and match payments."
Australian Twenty20 batsman Ben Dunk headlines a strong Tasmanian side with plenty of first-class experience.
Higgs said there would flexibility with the fixture with regards to the sensitivity around the death of Hughes.
"There has been a lot of talk about what is the most respectful thing to do, I think we show respect by playing," Higgs said.
"The players are not quite sure about what the right thing to do is.
"We talked about having maybe a rest day or a replacement day, and we'll sit down with the Tasmanian guys tomorrow and see where they are at."
Play gets underway at Manuka Oval at 10.30am.
