The domestic cricket season may be just a month old and most clubs only now finding their feet for the summer ahead but already wheels are in motion for a number of incentives aimed at ensuring that our sport doesn't miss out as the North West moves into City of Culture mode in 2013. The idea of marking the year in a cricket capacity has been on the table for a number of months now and yet despite the best efforts of its proposer, not much seems to have progressed in that time.

All that however looks set to change shortly as the man responsible for the submission, Brian Dougherty explains. "A number of interested parties first discussed the possibility of securing several major events for the City of Culture programme as far back as the time of the formation of the think tank group. We put together a set of proposals which obviously had to be submitted within a time-frame and at a recent seminar with Warren Deutrom, Richard Holdsworth and Joe Doherty sought the support of Cricket Ireland for the progress of the plans.

Our main proposal is the hosting of a One Day International between Ireland and England here in the North West but there are other suggestions as well including exploring the possibility of a cross-community floodlit game on the City side, and the Cricket Writers of Ireland seminar brought here as well. While we felt that the England game in particular would attract unequivocal support things seem to have drifted along, however our hand has now been forced as the Culture Committee has been requesting a final draft of the proposals in the near future. At this stage we need to be much more responsive so there are several meetings arranged between the interested parties over the next couple of weeks".

Obviously the wholesale restructuring of the game locally has taken up a lot of everyone's time but it is very difficult to see why Cricket Ireland wouldn't support the ODI plan given the importance of the occasion and at a time when promoting the sport throughout Ireland is gathering pace. I was at the seminar that Brian spoke about and both Warren and Richard outlined a medium to long term plan that seemed to indicate an exciting time for the sport in this country.

There has often been a view held that the North West is some sort of "poor relation" in the grander scheme of things but in all honesty I don't think that's the case. Where we have suffered is in the allocation of big matches and therein lies one problem that does have me baffled. Not that long ago Eglinton hosted the Australian ODI side (among other Internationals) as we got our fair share. Then the ICC had a re-think and the Co Derry ground no longer met the hosting criteria. Then Bready built their International-standard facility at Magheramason (with, it must be acknowledged the help of Cricket Ireland among others). Next thing you know Bready doesn't seem to fit the bill either and although we have successfully (some might say more than successfully) hosted the under-19 World Cup qualifiers among other tournaments, there's still no sign of the Englands, Indias or Pakistans of this world.

One remark that has stuck with me since that seminar was the promise that the North West would be hosting Internationals on a par with the other Unions by 2015. That gave the impression that one of our existing facilities would have the required work, whatever that may be, carried out over the next three years assuming there is no way another brand new facility will be built and ready in that time.

So can someone explain what Bready needs to do to bring their ground up to International specifications and how soon can that be done? The logistics involved in bringing an occasion of this stature will probably mean months of work for those prepared to take it on therefore the sooner we thrash this out the better. The meeting between the cricket group and the City of Culture representatives is pencilled in for around the 6th of June and to be fair to them both the North West Directors and Cricket Ireland have indicated that they will be represented. I have no doubt that the parent body will do whatever it can to help and Brian Dougherty indicated as much when he spoke about where things had been left recently. "I got the distinct impression that CricketIreland wanted to help us but it will obviously mean a lot of work at their end if the deal is to be done.

Those guys have been happy to travel here and discuss their visions with us and the fact that the North West has bought into the long term plan should mean that we remain on an even keel with the rest of the Unions. What we need now is the support of the North West cricket community and the people charged with running it. I would encourage as many as possible to show their support in whatever way possible so that no-one is left in any doubt that we can do this".

And we can do it. It is a cricket match we're after for heaven's sake; not the Oscars ceremony. It will require plenty of graft if we do get the green light but for now here's hoping that agreement can be reached and that the support is unanimous. It's been our turn for a while…