KYLE Aubin is not know for his aggressive shot making, but on Friday night it was his attacking intent with the bat than very nearly saw Centennial Bulls upset Cavaliers in their Royal Hotel Cup clash.
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Aubin produced his best effort in the Twenty20 competition as he belted an unbeaten 70 off 49, but it was not quite enough as Cavaliers held on to win by six runs at Wade Park.
"It's pretty sort of unusual for me to have that kind of strike rate in a cricket match, I'm not really that type of batter, but the situation we were in I had to go for it, it almost came off, not quite," Aubin said.
As defending premiers and 17-time cup winners, Cavaliers went into the match as favourites.
They made 3-144 after winning the toss and batting first, Kaleb Cook's 61 off as many deliveries the highlight but Matt Corben's 31 off 25 and Welsey Lummis' 15 off just four balls at the death were also impressive.
Mick Hutchinson was the best of the Bulls' bowlers with 2-20 off his four overs.
In reply Cavs had Bulls in strife at 3-25, but that saw Kyle Aubin join his brother Blake (24 off 30) at the crease. Together they put on 50 for the fourth wicket.
"I went in when we were 3-25 just after the power play finished, so we weren't doing real great. But I came in with Blake and usually if we can bat together for awhile, it usually puts us into a good position," Kyle Aubin said.
"I started over taking him on the scoreboard, it was like something is wrong here. It was nice to get some more runs than him for once," he added with a laugh.
Blake, who hit 66 not out off 55 in Bulls' opening round cup loss to Rugby, was eventually sent on his way when bowled by Mark Maybin.
At that stage Cavaliers still looked in control, but Kyle Aubin and Ethan Muller (14 not out off 13) managed to take it into the final over.
"To be honest I didn't think we were going to get that close, so I was just having a bit of fun and just trying to hit to the shorter boundary," Aubin said.
"But in the last over there were a few wides, we got a few extra balls and I hit a few boundaries at the start of the over and I was like 'We are actually in with a little bit of a chance here'.
"I think they got pretty nervous, I needed a six off the last ball [to draw] but he bowled a yorker outside off which I couldn't really do much with, which was pretty disappointing.
"Their bowling attack was pretty amazing to be honest and I was quite happy to score runs against a strong bowling attack. We were happy we got close, but at the same time we probably let it slip with our fielding, that cost us 10-15 runs which in the end was the difference."
Aubin hit six boundaries and a six in his 70.