BATHURST was unable to defend its Mitchell Cricket Council colts title despite an undefeated weekend against Mudgee and Orange.
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The defending champs rolled hosts Mudgee by nine wickets on Saturday before facing a tougher challenge against Orange on Sunday at the Sportsground.
Bathurst’s Ben Parsons produced an unbeaten knock of 94 to take his team to a total of 243 runs.
Thanks to Blue Mountains’ two victories over the weekend Bathurst was left with a simple plan: Bowl Orange out for as little as possible to try and claim the title on net run rate.
Orange’s innings was made up of small contributions across the board but not enough to challenge for the victory.
Charlie Greer (21) provided the strongest resistance for Orange during a stubborn fifth-wicket partnership.
With catching 243 out the question for Orange their attention soon turned towards scoring as many late runs as possible to ruin Bathurst’s day.
It was a plan they successfully executed despite being all out for 140 runs.
Three Bathurst bowlers walked away with three wickets to their name – Luke Powell (3-14), Connor Slattery (3-28) and Joe Lemmich (3-31).
Unfortunately for Bathurst their net run rate of +2.74 was not enough to catch Blue Mountains on +3.12.
Outside of a rocky top order performance and some fielding mishaps, Bathurst coach Sam Macpherson was happy with the way his team went about their cricket.
“We probably let a few chances go but even though we did we continued to dig deep. No-one had bad spells and everyone kept it to good lines,” he said.
“Ben Parsons, Brydon Slattery and Ricky Webb were great with the bat and Joey [Lemmich] bowled well. Powelly’s always going to give you good overs with not many runs. I told Connor [Slattery] to back himself, toss it up, and he got the wickets too.
“Kyle Aubin had just 25 runs from his nine overs as well.
“We kind of forgot about our own game and worried about the net run rate instead. We brought on our top bowlers again towards the end there to try and finish them off.
“Only disappointing thing was the top order. The boys fielded really well. Josh Kitchner missed a few chances, but made up for half for half of them in the end.”
Bathurst’s bowling depth was evident throughout the carnival as Aubin and Ryan Peacock picked up four and three wickets respectively in Saturday’s win over Mudgee.
Bathurst’s match against Blue Mountains on Friday was rained out.