TO most captains the prospect of losing Jameel Qureshi from their line up would have them nervous - especially in a must-win match - but that is not the case for St Pat's Old Boys skipper Adam Ryan.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
When it comes to Friday night's Royal Hotel Cup match against Cavaliers at Wade Park, Ryan says Pat's ranks are "flooded" with talented players to pick from.
Qureshi is one of the Saints' two marquee players in the Twenty20 competition. He claimed a wicket and hit 42 off 36 deliveries in the season-opener against Orange CYMS which blue and whites lost by 10 runs.
Qureshi missed the Saints' next outing - a win over Kinross - which kept their Royal Hotel title defence hopes alive.
But the Bathurst outfit needs to down Cavaliers to be any chance of going back-to-back which is why the experienced Qureshi - who skippers the Western Wranglers T20 outfit - would be a huge asset.
"He's 50-50 at the moment, he's got a knee injury so we haven't made that call yet," Ryan said of Quershi.
"But we're flooded, we're spoilt for choice this week with all the school kids coming back and we've also got a lot of other people available.
"Tan [Tanvir Singh] he's our other marquee and he filled in for us the last game when Jameel was out, so he's a back up option.
"It's good to have him as a replacement and with those school guys coming back, I was looking at our batting line up and thinking that I could mix it up 20 different ways."
Like Pat's, Cavaliers have a one from two record. While the Orange outfit will be without talented spinner Mitch Black on Friday, they will be boosted by their marquee player Ben Mitchell.
As a member of last season's title-winning Saints side, Pat's know Mitchell is a huge threat with bat and ball. Still, Ryan said his outfit don't feel too much pressure to perform.
"If we want to try and go back-to-back everything is a must win, so we'll see how we go," he said.
We just want to bat our 20 overs out and accumulate the runs, not have too many dot balls, have that run-a-ball mentality.
- Adam Ryan
"We still sort of have the same mentality as last year that Saturday cricket is our main focus and this is a bit of fun on the side, so that could be our little secret ingredient.
"We use this one as a bit of practice for Saturday, staying match fit. But it's a great competition, it's a lot of fun and allows us to try a lot of different combinations and different players as well."
This Friday with a glut of talented players to pick from, Ryan will have plenty of bowling options as well as the chance to be flexible with the batting order as the innings unfolds.
"It should give the early guys a licence to have a bit of a crack and we'll see happens from there. The thing that still probably plagues us a little bit is that we don't have the biggest hitters in the comp, but we've got guys who are good between the wickets," he said.
"So our style in T20 is similar to what we do on the weekend, we just want to bat our 20 overs out and accumulate the runs, not have too many dot balls, have that run-a-ball mentality.
"Anywhere between that 120-160 mark is our goal."
