CENTENNIALS Bulls captain Kurt Toole has gone against the grain with his cross-city clubs and has thrown his support behind keeping a full season of two-day matches in the Bathurst Orange Inter District Cricket season.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
Several Bathurst clubs have put their hands up recently in support of one-day matches making their way into the second season of the re-formed competition in 2020-21 but Bulls, off the back of a very encouraging performance, have no issues with the current setup.
The club entered the season without being a highly touted outfit but left with a balanced record of four wins and four losses, putting them ever so shy of a place in the finals.
Bulls were excellent at adapting to the longer format of the game and they did it quickly as well, spending the entire season right in the mix for a place in the top four.
Toole said the club are upbeat about the season to come thanks to their near-finals performance.
"We did quite well through the season and we've picked up a few players. I think the only difference between us playing and missing finals was ourselves. We dropped nine catches in one game, so next year if we can improve on our fielding we can make finals," he said.
"After our success last season we've picked up a guy who used to open the batting for the under 21s a few years ago, Pete McCleary, so that's a great pickup."
Bulls put the whole competition on notice when they won their opening two matches of the season and were stopped just short of the target by Bathurst City in week three.
They won back-to-back games across the competition break but two defeats at the end of the regular season saw them end fifth.
Centennials would love to have another crack at a finals berth with the exact same setup.
Other clubs have been quick to point out a return to one-dayers, in some capacity, will be beneficial from a representative cricket standpoint - since most games at that level use the format.
But the full season of two day cricket does have one major advantage: There's no way to produce an unbalanced draw.
Toole said the challenge of being unable to learn about a team from a previous experience is one that the club embraces.
"I personally like the two day cricket only because I bat down the order, so with two day cricket you get the chance to bat a bit as well," he said.
"I really enjoy the chance to play the other teams once and testing yourself against a different bowling lineup each game.
"Playing each team once is fair because the draw doesn't become stacked. For example you could play a weaker team in a Twenty20 game then face a stronger team in a two dayer."
