IT may not have been a win, but Bathurst under 12s coach Shane Broes was happy with the improvement his young squad showed in Sunday’s Mitchell Cricket Council match against Mudgee.
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After suffering a seven-wicket loss to Orange in their season opener, this time around at Morse Park, Bathurst took the game down to the final overs.
Mudgee, with five wickets in hand, got the job done but there was a lot to like for Broes.
“The boys just weren’t quite on the mark with the bowling, but it was certainly a vast improvement from the previous game,” the coach said.
“We’ve still got a lot of work to do, but there were obviously a lot more positives to come out of this game. Our wicket-keeper actually pulled out the morning of the game because he was sick, so the guys that filled in were part-time ’keepers. It was a little bit rough on them.
“But if we go from last game to this game, it’s been a dramatic improvement, so if we can continue on that scale, hopefully we can put it all together in our next game.”
Bathurst batted first on Sunday and the innings was anchored around three players. Noah Siede occupied the crease for a long period in hitting 18, Ruben Newton put on 22 and Charlie Rendall scored 23 further down the order.
It helped the hosts to 8-121.
When it came to bowling, Siede backed up his solid batting with an impressive performance as the game came down to a tense finish. With wickets in hand, Mudgee snuck home.
“We got beaten in the last couple overs of the day … I think they were five down,” Broes said.
“We batted out our 40 overs, which is what I asked the boys to do, so batting side of it was pretty good. However, our bowling and extras were very costly, we had 25 byes and probably over 40 extras, which really hurt us at the end of the day.
“In saying that, they had 40 extras as well, so both sides were a bit erratic with that side of things.
“The run rate was the issue for Mudgee, if we hadn’t given away so many extras that may have been the difference at the end of the day.”