Bathurst puts on 267 runs against Orange before rain washes out their Western Zone Premier League match

While Bathurst amassed its highest total since the formation of the Western Zone Premier League competition on Sunday when piling on 267 runs against Orange, rain meant they did not get a chance to defend it.

Instead of trying to extend their winning streak over Orange in the competition, Bathurst had to settle for a draw at Wade Park.

"It definitely was a bitter pill to swallow, definitely," Bathurst skipper Adam Ryan said. "I felt like the performance was awesome in terms of what we wanted to achieve and a good team performance. I know we lost a couple clubs there at the end, but that was just due to taking a few of those extra chances late on.

"Both Peacock and Bails did a fantastic job to set us up at the top, really smart batting from those two. They really put us in the box seat.

"It was really disappointing we didn't get a chance to bowl and to capitalise on all that hard work.

"On that Wade Park pitch we think we would've been able to get a fair bit of out it, it would've been a pretty good performance to run that down."

As Ryan indicated, Bathurst's imposing 8-267 was built around the partnership of Bailey Brien and Ryan Peacock.

They came together with the score at 1-29 but proceeded to put on a 118-run stand.

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Peacock was the more aggressive of the pair as he scored 57 off 58 deliveries, and by the time he fell to Zac Reimer, Bathurst was well in control at 2-147.

Brien went on to make 82 - his best ever knock in the Western Zone Premier League - which put the visitors in a position to go harder over the final 10 overs.

They scored at better than a run-a-ball in those last 10 overs, 76 additional runs being added to the tally as Bathurst enjoyed its best day with the bat since the competition began in 2017-18.

Connor Slattery and Jameel Quershi both hit 24 off 27 and Sam Macpherson belted 32 off 23 after coming in at number seven.

"That first 10 overs we worked hard and then, after about 10 onwards, it was a steady increase. I was very pleased how we turned dots into ones with our batting approach, we didn't hit one six, but it was just smart batting and turning over the strike," Ryan said.

"It was just a smart innings, it was fantastic to watch, and I think there's still a tiny bit of improvement there with that too.

"Considering too we've put a lot of pressure on ourselves lately because we haven't had a lot of high scores and we've put in a lot of hard work, it was really great to see that today."

Momentum certain rested with Bathurst, but during the innings break the rain came. Not long after the decision was made to declare the game a wash-out.

"We would've had to wait the maximum amount of time and we still would not have been guaranteed to get any play, so we decided to make the call a bit earlier and not sit around," Ryan said.

"Having the radars and technology and being able to call people from other towns helped make the decision a bit easier."

It was the second time this season Bathurst has had a WZPL match washed-out, their opener against Dubbo also declared a draw.

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