No more festival games for Lilac Hill

Western Australia's Lilac Hill fixture has become a victim of the crowded international and domestic schedules and will no longer appear on the summer calendar. Graeme Wood, the Western Australia chief executive, had hoped the festival game would be included as part of England's Ashes tour but the plan has been abandoned.

"When we decided 12 months ago to postpone the event for 2009, we stated just how much the cricket landscape has changed in two decades and the greater demands on international and interstate scheduling," Wood said. "The constraints continue to provide us with great challenges and it has unfortunately resulted in this wonderful event coming to an end."

The fixture was known for its guest players and in 1999 Dennis Lillee came out of retirement to bowl with his son Adam as the Chairman's XI beat Pakistan. Richard Hadlee, Graeme Pollock, Barry Richards, Michael Holding, Allan Border, Jeff Thomson and Greg Chappell also played for the local side, which won seven of the 18 matches.