TICKING off a couple of basic requirements will be all that is in Bathurst City captain Ben Orme’s mind as he and his team enter the last day of the regular season in Bathurst District Cricket Association first grade this afternoon.

His team resumes their match against St Pat’s Old Boys at 4-77 needing another 35 for first innings points with two solid and reliable batsmen at the crease.

Shabbir Dhamani, who looms as arguably Redbacks’ most important player in the upcoming finals series, and Scott Rice will continue to try and run down the target having come together with their team in trouble at 4-28.

Even with just five hours of cricket remaining there are a number of possible outcomes for Redbacks. If they could win the match on first innings and then pick up 1.77 bonus points, they would almost certainly finish in the top two.

Orme said that he can afford to plan a little more now than what he could when Pat’s seamer Matt Fearnley initially ran through his top order.

“We were in all sorts of trouble there for a while, I don’t think small targets are ever easy to chase if the opposition bowls well and they were certainly bowling well early on. They got their tails up and we were struggling to handle it,” he said.

“Scotty and Shabbir are probably the two best players in our team when it comes to just taking time out of a game and getting us up and running again, and they batted beautifully to get us through to stumps.

“We still have batting to come, there is no reason we shouldn’t get these last 35 runs, but Old Boys lost five or six for 15 themselves, so you just never know.”

Rugby Union’s match is still on an even keel against Blayney Bushrangers, so leapfrogging the Bulldogs isn’t something Orme can bank on simply because he doesn’t know how that game will pan out.

What he does know is that current leaders Oxford Centennials boast a 6.09 points advantage, four of which would disappear if Redbacks are able to secure the first innings win.

From there, nine wickets, or 178 runs would get them enough bonus points to jump Ox-Cents.

That would make Rugby’s result irrelevant, apart from deciding who took the minor premiership.

“We have thought about it, and what we need to do to try and finish where. There’s certainly a huge incentive in finishing in the top two, you obviously have the second chance if you lose, and if you win that match you go straight into the decider,” he said.

“Look at last season, we qualified for the grand final and when it was washed-out, we won because we qualified first. It certainly means something to get as high as you can on the ladder.

“But if we don’t do enough, then we don’t do enough. Hopefully we at least take something out of the game because our batting definitely needs to lift.”

St Pat’s are pinning their hopes on a miraculous collapse similar to the one that happened to them last week.

If they were able to trigger such a collapse, they could still sneak into the top four.

The opportunity for a second innings win is also still a faint hope, given that the game is already well advanced. Pat’s also have the confidence that comes with posting an outright win over Blayney two weeks ago.