Sideline Sid Sports correspondent & historian www.sunlive.co.nz

Parking is likely to be at an absolute premium around the Blake Park precincts on Saturday, when summer and winter sports meet together, at the expansive Mount Maunganui sporting venue.

Cricket is making its season swan-song, with the Baywide Williams Cup premier final on the hallowed turf of the Bay Oval and the Western Bay of Plenty Cricket Reserve and B Grade title deciders taking place on the two top-level cricket pitches.

Adjacent to the cricket action, the Mount Maunganui premier rugby team will be at home for the first time this season as they chase back to back Baywide top echelon crowns.

The Mount first fifteen always attract crowds in the many hundreds, with their explosive style of sevens style rugby.

The Mount premier and development rugby sides will host Paroa, with the Mounties likely to run riot over the Eastern Bay of Plenty visitors.

Greerton Cricket Club will contest all three cricket final stanza's.

The Greerton premiers will meet long-time rivals Otumoetai Cadets, with their reserve representatives in the Greerton Sikh XI playing Te Puke.

The Greerton B Grade side will round out one of the GCC's biggest days since being established in 1960, with an encounter with Cadets Punjab Warriors.

Last Friday night brought up an impressive Bay Oval statistic that has flown under the radar.

The White Ferns T20 match against West Indies Women was the 50th appearance by an international team on the Bay Oval grounds.

The first international encounters, kicked off with the Cricket World Cup Qualification tournament warm-up matches on January 10 2014.

It's hard to believe that the countries latest international venue has hosted 50 teams from the four corners of the globe, in the last four years.

Uganda played United Arab Emirates on the Bay Oval, with Canada meeting the Netherlands on the adjacent Bay Oval Two wicket.

Since then, there has been a constant smorgasbord of international cricket visitors at the Bay Oval venues and nets.

Afghanistan were a delight when they came here in October 2014 to prepare for the 2015 Cricket World Cup held in New Zealand and Ireland trained here, before playing CWC preparatory matches in other centres at the same time.

The Bay Oval was a major host venue during the CWCQ14 and the recent Under 19 Cricket World - where the Under 19 final was played out to a massive television audience.

The White Ferns have been regular visitors, with South Africa, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Pakistan and England, bringing some of the very best players in the world to square off with our own Black Caps.

Gazing into a crystal ball, one can see a continuation of regular summertime appearances from the best cricket playing nations in the world.

Perhaps a test match or two and who can say that we aren't ready for a day/night test match with the pink ball.