WAYNE Sellers has never before captained a first grade side, but the ORC talent is looking forward to the challenge of doing just that this Bathurst District Cricket Association season.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
Sellers has taken over the skipper’s job from Trent Fitzpatrick and will attempt to build a young looking Tigers squad into a more competitive outfit.
Last season the Tigers only managed three wins and missed out on the finals, but with a bulk of those players returning, Sellers does have a good base from which to build.
“I’ve done a lot of junior rep sides before, but I’ve never captained a senior side,” Sellers said.
“I’m very excited, looking forward to it.
“Our side is not overly different to last season actually. We’ll have a couple of younger fellas coming up from juniors and the lower grades, but it’s basically the same.
“We are very young, there are four or five of us who are only 20, 22. There are a couple of older guys, but they are all starting to not be so keen on first grade, so we will pick a younger side.
“It is a bit of a rebuilding phase like last year, but it will get better.”
One thing which Sellers believes will help the Tigers’ cause this season is the addition of Twenty20 cricket to the premiership. Those rounds which be contested prior to the two-day fixtures.
“I think that’s good for us, we seem to score very fast and we’ve got a couple of guys who can hit the ball pretty hard. That’s sort of what we’re built around,” he said.
“They have that T20 comp on Monday night, like a less formal one, we won it a couple of years ago when it first started to get serious and we’ve been pretty competitive since.”
This Saturday ORC faces a stern test against defending premiers Bathurst City at the Sportsgorund, but Sellers is happy to have drawn them first up.
“That’s good, it’s good to see where we are early. It’s always good fun that game, there’s plenty of niggle,” he said. “Last year Mike Waldren signed with them. He was a junior with us all the way through and when he came back from uni he played for them and was the difference for them.”