Last Man Standing to hit Port

It comes in the way of an eight-a-side competition which originated through a couple of mates in London who wanted to play cricket all year round.

The competition has its roots in capital cities at the moment in the hope it will broaden into regional areas such as Port Macquarie.

Franchise owner and organiser Simon Burns said the competition is for those who can't commit to playing cricket or don't have the time to spare for an entire summer afternoon.

"We try to get it over and done with in two hours," he said.

It is a little different to normal cricket in the sense that one person is allowed to bat by themselves if they are the last wicket.

"It makes it a bit interesting because the last man can only score twos, fours or sixes, but he can still bat by himself," he said.

He was confident there would be enough players in the Hastings to turn it into a yearly competition.

"We've already had a lot of enquiries about it and hope to start a little league in the next couple of months."

The first game of its kind will be played on Sunday from 11am at Tuffins Lane with Macquarie Hotel to clash with the Port Macquarie Stars.

"We hope a few guys turn up and sign up because we can have another game at 1pm if we have the numbers," Burns said.

An added bonus to the eight-a-side format is that the umpire does everything - from scoring to setting up the field.

"We want to make it as simple as possible so the guys can just turn up and play."

Registration costs $200 per team which pays for coloured international ODI style team shirts and insurance costs.

The registration fee is only paid once a year (regardless of the number of seasons a teams plays in the year) with re-registration after the first year costing $100 per team (assuming that a new set of shirts are not required).

The match fees of $120 per team per game (i.e. $15 a player in a eight-man team) covers field hire, league manager, umpiring, scoring and a cricket ball.