BATHURST will find themselves in sudden-death territory on Sunday when they host Lithgow in the preliminary final for the Mitchell under 21s cricket competition after their defeat against Orange last weekend.
Having qualified first for the finals, Bathurst went into the Orange match as favourites to win and earn hosting rights for the grand final as they attempt to defend their crown from last season. Things didn’t go according to script though as Orange chased down a challenging target at Police Paddock, and coach Scott Inwood is hoping his players can avoid a repeat of that effort against Lithgow in what is a grand final replay from last season.
“We can’t afford to field as poorly as we did last Sunday, it’s as simple as that,” Inwood said.
“To be honest we didn’t expect that we’d be playing after all the rain we had in the few days before it so we went in pretty unprepared but that is no excuse. It didn’t hurt us with our batting so it shouldn’t have been an issue in the field either.”
Poor catching cost Bathurst dearly as the top three Orange batsmen all registered half-centuries, and their three-wicket victory meant that Max Hope’s maiden century for the 21s went unrewarded.
Though the ground was small, no venue would have been big enough to contain some of his shots as he pummelled the Orange bowlers and Inwood is confident that Hope can produce something similar again.
If someone can play that sort of innings this week though, he is hoping there can be a bit more support.
“Max played a great knock, and he really showed how talented he is and with that innings under his belt I’m sure his confidence will be sky high and we’ll see a lot more good scores from him,” the coach said.
“Aside from Josh Toole and Joey Coughlan though who each got 40-odd, the batting wasn’t great so there is still some improvement there.”
Lithgow don’t boast the sort of depth that Bathurst do but have still given them a tough challenge when they have met in recent seasons, notably in last summer’s grand final where it took a rescue mission from Aaron Bell to steal the title for Bathurst. One thing that would give Bathurst a considerable advantage however is dry weather, which would allow the game to be played on turf at the Sportsground.
“Lithgow don’t play a lot of cricket on turf so it would obviously suit us a lot more if we were to play there rather than on a synthetic pitch again,” Inwood said.
“Our bowling attack is a good one but things like moving the ball off the seam and spinning it a long way don’t really happen on synthetic so it makes it tougher for the bowlers if we get shifted again.
“The other thing is that with all the recent rain the boys have hardly played any cricket, so if we were to win this weekend and make it through playing on synthetic again it would make it pretty tough to adjust against Orange in the grand final.”
Inwood is expecting fast man Alex Miller to return for the match, while for Sam Macpherson and captain Josh Toole it will be their last appearance this season win or lose, with Macpherson returning to university and Toole playing for Country Colts next week.
BATHURST (squad): Josh Toole (c), Aaron Bell, Sam Macpherson, Alex Miller, Brendan Inwood, Max Hope, Wayne Sellers, Joey Coughlan, Bill Hurley, Pete McCleary, Ryan Healey, Johnny Anson, Blake Aubin, Michael Waldren, Jared Portegies
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