CENTENNIALS Bulls have the opportunity to make it two from two in the Royal Hotel Cup this Friday evening when they face defending champions Lithgow Lightning.
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The match not only pits two unbeaten teams against one another but it sees new Bulls recruits Ryan Gurney, Chris Redding and Josh Howarth taking on their old cup team.
Former Lidsdale player Gurney will be out to improve greatly on his scores from both the 2016-17 grand final (duck) and the Bulls’ opening round win over Centrals (1).
Gurney will instead be looking for the form which took him to 80 against Bathurst City in last season’s Royal Hotel Cup.
Howarth picked up two vital wickets in last season’s grand final win over Orange City and Redding showed his potential recently with a three-wicket President’s Cup haul against Bathurst.
If all three fire, along with Bulls marquee man Mick Curtale, then Centennials will be tough to stop.
“It should be a pretty good game seeing as we’ve got a couple of Lithgow boys,” Bulls captain Andrew Brown said.
“I think they’ll be really keen for this one.
“From what we’ve seen Lithgow still have a really strong side, and their marquee player [Pat Lawrence] is the opening bowler for Hawkesbury first grade. He picked up a couple of wickets for Lithgow in their first game.”
Lawrence’s skill is evident in his season statistics, which show six wickets in three Sydney Premier Cricket Twenty20 fixtures.
He finished with 2-9 in the Lightning’s opening game.
It should be a pretty good game seeing as we’ve got a couple of Lithgow boys.
- Andrew Brown
“We’ve got players with big game experience like Curtale, Tooley [Josh Toole], Ryan, Chris, Josh and Billy [Aaron Seymour] which should help us out,” Brown said.