Hastings and Macleay to host inaugural over-65 national cricket titles in February

Not even 12 months after the Hastings region threw its hat in the ring to potentially host future over-65 national titles, it has achieved just that.

Carnival convenor Merv Bourke said while it is a new age group, it was an exciting opportunity to showcase the Mid North Coast to a wider audience.

"It's a new age group; they've had these national carnivals for years in 60s, 70s and 50s the last couple of years," he said.

"[These carnivals] are usually held in capital cities or at large regional areas. They've got the 60s in Geelong this year with about 40 teams going to it which can be a problem when you need 20 turf wickets.

"We held the (over-65s) state carnival earlier this year, so this one (nationals) is a bit of trial and error and not a large-scale carnival which is the reason why we can host it."

Bourke said teams from Queensland, the ACT, Victoria and New South Wales have confirmed their attendance while Western Australia are yet to make a final decision.

"South Australia and Tasmania support the carnival, but they're just not in a position to send teams this year," he said.

"It's a development thing, but it's good for publicity and to boost cricket profile and sports tourism."

The six-day event will also travel north to utilise some of the Macleay's facilities.

"We're going to play at Macleay as well because we haven't got enough turf wickets in the Hastings, but Macleay is not very far these days," Bourke said.

"We're going to use those new Verge Street turf wickets and we probably won't use the lights, but we know they've got them if needed."

The inaugural national titles will run from February 5-10 with around 200 players to visit across two separate divisions.

"People might say there's only a couple of hundred people coming, but if they're here for six days it's like having 1500 people here for a night," Bourke said.

"They're here for a fair while compared to other carnivals that are only one or two days."