BATHURST’S big game curse and SCG Cup shortcomings will be under the microscope once more this Sunday when they travel to Parkes to try and break their hoodoo in the annual cricket competition.

Playing both in the cup – the state-wide country-based knockout – and against Parkes has been a fruitless exercise for the Bathurst District side over the last five years.

Since first taking on the Lachlan Council powerhouse in 2009-10, Bathurst are winless from four encounters. Three of those have been in the SCG Cup.

In the tournament itself, the are 0-5 having also lost twice to Dubbo.

Overall across the SCG Cup and Western Zone Premier League, they have a disheartening record of 0-8 against the two best teams in the zone. It isn’t something Bathurst captain Daniel Casey likes hearing about.

“It is incredibly frustrating to keep coming up against those two sides and to not be able to get past them,” he said.

“At the same time though, you have to have a lot of respect for how good they have been and how long they’ve been at that level.

“With cricket and hockey I’ve played a lot of sport against Parkes and they don’t have near as many blokes to choose from as we do, but they are just absolute quality and it is hard not to admire it.

“I don’t know how old Phil Dunford is, but he was in the Parkes team the first time I ever played them, he’s still there now bowling as well as he did then, just line and length. And because they’ve been so good, they’ve all got big match experience in the SCG Cup and that just makes them even harder to beat.”

Bathurst has had a couple of close calls with the Anthony Heraghty-captained side, most notably in their first SCG Cup encounter in November 2009.

On that occasion a Josh Toole century got Bathurst to within three runs of Parkes’ total of 301. Last season they only lost by four wickets after 82 not out from Casey and 58 from Jameel Qureshi helped them post 7-237.

In between Bathurst were thrashed in 2011-12 when they were dismissed for just 75.

“There’s been some close ones, the one where they made 300 I can just remember bowling and their edges would fly for four. You’d move a bloke finer to stop it happening again and another edge would go for four where you’d just moved the fielder from,” Casey said.

“We have been able to put it to them a few times and I know that we have the players to do it. I’m excited about this game, and judging by the response from the guys when I sent a text around this week, they are too.

“In the past we’ve had to chase hard to get guys for these matches, but within 10 minutes of asking for availability, everyone was back in touch with me and keen to go.”

There might be some added incentive for some of Casey’s players as well after quiet performances in the Western Zone trial last weekend.

Toole was picked for Western but was dismissed cheaply by rivals Combined Valleys, while Joey Coughlan top scored for Mitchell but still only managed 20.

Callum Hotham was unbeaten on five but didn’t get much chance to show his capabilities, while Aaron Seymour was not used with the ball until fourth change.

“I really felt sorry for a bloke like Billy [Seymour] to see what happened in the Mitchell game,” the captain said.

“He is a great new ball bowler and he needs it in his hand. I was worried that it might have turned him off rep cricket altogether, but he was as keen as anything to go over to Parkes.

“He’ll have the new ball this week and hopefully he can get stuck right into them.”