THE finals hopes of last-placed Centennials Bulls are mathematically alive in the Royal Hotel Cup and that's motivation enough for the floundering Bathurst side to give it their all in this Friday's match against Centrals.
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Bulls are hoping some of their Bathurst Orange Inter District Cricket form can rub off onto their Twenty20 campaign, as they badly need a pair a big-margin wins across their last two games to even be considered a chance of finals qualification.
Centennials have achieved a two from two strike rate of reaching the finals since joining the competition but that perfect record will be snuffed out this Friday at Wade Park if they don't bring their best big-hitting cricket.
That's because their opponents are also without a win from their opening two matches.
In their latest matches Bulls put up a gallant but unsuccessful chase of CYMS' total following a Michael Delaney century while Centrals were undone by the same opponent in a rain affect clash.
Bulls have an opportunity to make a late lunge for finals given that their last two opponents - Centrals and Lithgow Lightning - both sit outside the top four.
They will need not just one, but several, players to stand tall this Friday.
Centennials' star of the season so far has been Blake Aubin.
Aubin has hit half centuries across both of the team's T20 matches and has kept his side within reach of a win on both occasions.
He said there's still plenty of drive among the Bulls camp to keep the season alive.
"We have a similar team to the one we have on Saturday's for the two-day form. We have plenty of big hitters and we've got line and length bowlers but we haven't been able to put it together on the night yet," he said.
"We've got quite a few games under our belt in the two day format now so we've got confidence. Our goal's to go in there, win these last two games and just see what happens.
"Last time Centennials made the finals we only won two games during the round matches."
Aubin said the team's earlier success against Centrals counts for little when playing under the Wade Park lights.
"Last game [against CYMS] we put up a competitive score but it just wasn't enough after the start that they got. If we can get 170 any other time you'd normally feel pretty confident about that," he said.
"We played Centrals at the end of last year and had a win against them but Twenty20 is a different game. It really depends on whether you take those key moments or not."
Next week's a busy one.
Bathurst City can assure themselves of finals when they face Lithgow on Wednesday night while unbeaten CYMS and Orange City face off.