Cooper Brien's knock of 70 against Orange a standout performance for Bathurst

Bathurst displayed resilience and fearless batting in their Western Zone Colts Carnival third place playoff game against Orange on Sunday, bouncing back from a semi-final loss to Dubbo a day earlier.

One of those who displayed the greatest amount of composure in Bathurst’s monster innings of 9-387 was 14-year-old Cooper Brien.

The under 16s talent was brought into the Bathurst side mostly to give him the experience against older opponents but he looked at home during his knock of 70.

Brien had played a sturdy supporting role next to Nic Broes during Saturday’s loss, hitting 13, but brought out a more aggressive approach the following day.

Bathurst coach Shane Broes said Brien was on song at the under 18s carnival.

“He’s certainly a talent of the way up,” he said.

“He’s missed a couple of the 16s Mitchell games because of a sore back so this was a chance for him to spend some time at the crease and today he certainly did that.

“Hopefully it will help him out with his Bradman [Cup] selection as well.”

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Brien hit 10 of Bathurst’s 46 boundaries in the win over Orange.

He has arguably been one of the most in form players across all Bathurst junior age groups this season, crafting knocks of 36 and an unbeaten 50 in his two Mitchell Cricket Council under 16s Challenge Shield games and a 63 in his Premier League appearance.

The carnival acted as a selection process for the Western Zone representative side to contest the Country Colts Championship at Narrabri from December 17 to 20.

Bathurst had five players named in the side: Nic Broes, Ben Mitchell, Tanvir Singh, Mitch Taylor and Ethan Ivory.

The loss to Dubbo was a small blight on a weekend that will go down into the Bathurst District Cricket Association’s record books.

Bathurst went down by five wickets while Dubbo would go on to lose the final to the Chairman’s XI composite side by one run.

“Dubbo went very hard early and took their chances. We had a drop early and a missed run out which could have changed the game but that’s cricket,” Broes said.

“They had the better of the wicket. We lost the toss and the wicket was a little bit damp.

“We were on the wrong end of that but when they came out to bat they took it to us. We were ordinary in our fielding and gave them too much width with our bowling.”