Blizzard joins Australia XI By Alex Meibusch Cricket ANU will have to make the final of the Canberra Twenty20 competition if Sydney Thunder batsman Aiden Blizzard is to play any part in the competition. 
Blizzard has been called in as assistant coach of the Cricket Australia XI for the first nine days of the Matador Cup, and will miss the Twenty20 pool games this weekend.
The Cricket Australia XI is a youth team that has been added to the national one day competition for the first time.
ANU struggled through the 2014-15 summer, finishing last in the one-day competition and second-last in the two-day.
Blizzard will be one of a number of key players missing for ANU including ACT/NSW Country under-17s captain Dan Leerdam, but new coach Randall Starr was optimistic about his team.
"When it's the first weekend of the year, it can be hard to predict the conditions and we don't really know what to expect from Albury-Wodonga.
We'll just play our game and hope for the best," he said.
ANU faces Albury Wodonga at ANU North Oval in their match on Saturday before playing Ginninderra and Eastlake on Sunday.
Cricket Albury Wodonga and South Coast District Cricket Association round out the 10-team Twenty20 competition, which also includes the eight Canberra Premier Cricket teams.
The format of this year's competition has drawn criticism from some clubs as a perfect record of wins does not secure a place in the grand final on   November 1.
The tournament is comprised of two pools of five, in which each team plays three matches with the highest-ranked teams from each pool going straight to a grand final.
"That's probably not great. If you play weaker teams and even playing at different venues can effect whether teams hit bigger scores, but it is what it is," Starr said. "All you can do is get on with it, cross our fingers and hopefully we can win all three."