BATHURST will begin its Presidents Cup title defence this Sunday against one of its biggest rivals in the Mitchell Cricket Council competition, the Orange District outfit.
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Last season Orange beat Bathurst during the regular rounds of the annual competition, but when the pair met again in the grand final, it was a much different story.
The Jameel Qureshi skippered Bathurst side shone with the bat, making 5-321, then backed that up to skittle Orange for 160.
There are some changes to the side that posted that 161-run victory – there is no Mike Waldren, Wayne Sellers, Derryn Clayton, Andrew Brown or Matt Fearnley.
However, Qureshi feels the side he has at his disposal is more than capable of replicating the result. Experienced representative duo Sam Macpherson and Ryan Peacock are back, Luke Powell and Ben Parsons will add to the bowling attack and Connor Slattery is another promising junior who gets his chance.
“We are a bit fortunate now, we have a fair bit of depth and a lot of guys putting up their hands to play district cricket. We pick guys to play certain roles in the team and that helps balance our side out a fair bit,” Qureshi said.
“We’ve got a lot of options, we have guys who can spin it both ways, and you’ve got Aaron Seymour who is a different sort of bowler, a tall kid like Luke Powell, then Stepho [Matt Stephen] who is just Stepho. Benny Parsons, he’s another tall, young kid who is going well.
“The beauty of our side is we have a lot of different characters, but everyone gets on.
“We’ve been building for a couple of years. It started with Daniel Casey, he played a big role in helping build the culture of the team, it’s enjoyable playing the district stuff on Sunday.”
As well as being the opening round of the Presidents Cup, the match doubles as the third round of the Western Zone Premier League.
Neither Bathurst or Orange has opened their account in that competition yet, Orange falling to Cowra in round one before their scheduled meeting with Dubbo was washed-out and declared a draw.
Bathurst had a round two bye, while in the opening game hosts Dubbo lost just five wickets in successfully chasing down the 237 runs needed for victory.
Still, there were things from that game for Quershi to like, such as a 93 from Henry Shoemark and Matt Stephen’s three-wicket haul.
“I think there were a lot of positives for us to take out of the Dubbo game. Obviously being the first hit for the year we usually tend to be pretty slow starters, but we know the mistakes we made and if we rectify them we’ll be back to our usual selves hopefully,” he said.
“I think the thing about our side is we tend to more concentrate on what we are doing. We feel that if we play as a team well and do our things right, then we’re usually well on our way to being able to win the game.”
The match at The Scots School will start at 10am on Sunday.
BATHURST: Jameel Qureshi, Ryan Peacock, Imran Qureshi, Luke Powell, Samuel Macpherson, Henry Shoemark, Matt Stephen, Aaron Seymour, Nic Broes, Connor Slattery, Ben Parsons, David Sellers.