Softball Australia has received confirmation from the World Baseball Softball Confederation (WBSC) that a change has been made to the age eligibility for the WBSC 2023 Junior Men’s World Cup.

As the WBSC Junior Men’s World Cup was originally scheduled to be held in 2022, those players born in 2004 were originally age eligible for this event.

Earlier this year, the WBSC postponed the Junior Men’s World Cup to 2023. The WBSC has now confirmed that players born in 2004 will be age eligible for the 2023 Junior Men’s World Cup.

This means that all players born in 2004 will be eligible for selection into the Junior Steelers team in 2023.

To ensure that our U18 Boys’ National Championship serves as a selection event for the 2023 Junior Steelers team, a change will be made to the age eligibility for that year’s event. The event will become the 2023 U19 Men’s National Championship, for that year only. Players born in 2004 and later will be eligible to play at that National Championship.

The age of the U16 Boys’ National Championship in 2023 will not change. This means that players born in 2004, 2005 and 2006 will only be eligible to play at the U19 Men’s National Championship (or older age grade events) in 2023.

It is expected that the majority, if not all players selected into the 2023 Junior Steelers team will be born in 2004-2006. Therefore, it is important that all those players are competing at the same event, to allow selectors to best assess their performance against each other.

In 2024, the event will return to an U18 Boys’ National Championship.