St Pat's Old Boys progress to BOIDC preliminary final after draw with CYMS

As the players never got onto the Sportsground on Saturday after rain, there was never going to be enough time for the Orange team to cause an upset, with St Pat's progressing as the higher-ranked team after the match finished in a draw.

While technically not a win, St Pat's skipper Adam Ryan said it was good to see his side progress to the preliminary final.

"We came into the second day and I thought us bowling would put us in a better position first, but they won the toss and sent us into bat. So it was our job to bat out the day," he said.

"Fortunate enough, we were good enough to see the day out.

"We had a little collapse at the start but Andrew Brown and Cooper Brien were exceptional in their partnership. They were scoring runs and staying in, which was awesome."

After CYMS put faith in their bowling by electing to bowl first, things looked to be going the green and gold's way early, having dismissed inform opener Bailey Brien (0), Ryan (9) and reliable bat Connor Slattery (3) to have the hosts in dire trouble early at 3-18.

However, Andrew Brown (45) and Cooper Brien (77) took control and by the time the latter was out, St Pat's had recovered to be at 4-136.

CYMS' skipper Hugh Le Lievre took five wickets on the way to helping his side dismiss St Pat's for 197, but it wasn't enough to help his side to victory.

St Pat's were all out just before 5pm, but CYMS chose not to bat with only 10 overs left not enough time to chase down their Bathurst rivals.

The match officially ended in a draw.

"It's a bit of mix feelings that it finished in a draw because there is no result but those are the rules we play by and we can only do what we can do," Ryan said.

Le Lievre admitted that his side missed any real chance of winning after the first day of play was washed out.

"It's disappointing when you work so hard all season for factors out of your control taking away what is a fair and reasonable opportunity," he said.

"We won the toss and bowled first to give ourselves a chance of chasing down whatever total what was set for us.

"Credit to St Pat's, they really grounded it out and occupied the crease.

"I felt like we weren't too far off the pace.

"I think we only dropped one catch the entire day, so in a day's cricket that's fair enough. But if you get an extra day to chase them down, it's a completely other ball game."