Five things we learned from round two of Bathurst Orange Inter District Cricket

We had a complete washout in the opening round of the competition and two of Saturday's latest round games still weren't able to go ahead due to the wet weather, but three contests were lucky enough to reach their conclusion.

There were some fantastic performances to come out of those games but it's hard to get a read on how teams stack up when some squads still haven't been able to get out to the middle.

Here's what we learned out of Saturday's action...

HOW about a maiden first grade ton and a match-winning knock at representative level to start your season?

St Pat's Old Boys' Cooper Brien took Centrals to town in his 108 on Saturday before hitting a team high 67 in the Central West Wrangers' victory over Western Plains Outlaws on Sunday.

That's quite the weekend for one of the region's top rising prospects.

Though 'rising prospect' might be selling Brien short, given that he finished up in 13^th on last BOIDC season's run scorers list at the end of the season and has been a force at junior representative events in the past.

He's now at the top of the new BOIDC 2022-23 run scorers list, just ahead of teammate Connor Slattery (101), and don't be surprised if he hangs around towards the top for the remainder of the competition.

There's obviously a long, long way to go but we got a glimpse last season at what Brien can do - particularly in the short formats - when he gets his eye in.

Be ready for some combination of Andrew Brown, Brien, Slattery and Adam Ryan to put on another impressive stand for the Saints in the future.

FOR years we've become accustomed to MyCricket's templates for viewing and processing scores from cricket matches but that's all changed with the introduction of PlayHQ.

The new system has been adopted at the national level for cricket clubs across Australia this season and while it brings a clean, easy to read interface it's also come with its share of issues and detractors.

Just search 'PlayHQ' on Twitter and you'll be inundated with a number of people from across the country dealing with various issues on the platform.

Despite being electronically scored live ball-by-ball there's currently no way to view that ball-by-ball data on match scorecards, and individual statistics have not yet been integrated with MyCricket's data for past seasons.

That last point is a huge blow for those of us in the media, who rely on that historical data to bring readers interesting statistics and talking points about individual and team performances.

Player data can still be found through MyCricket's search function but it would be wonderful to have that information on hand by clicking a player's name on a PlayHQ scorecard, and not having to search via an external website.

Clicking through for individual player statistics currently exists on the AFL Central West's PlayHQ match centre, so hopefully the feature arrives on the cricket scene soon.

People should have confidence that issues will be worked on - given the volume of feedback received - but how long we have to wait for those features remains to be seen.

WATCH and learn.

That's the mantra Brett Causer gave to his Orange City teammates with the way he went about things at Wade Park on Saturday.

There's nothing like a captain's knock to give the team something to rally around in an opening week game and Causer delivered just that with his 83.

It was Causer's first BOIDC century, and it would prove to be a match-winning performance that got the Warriors across the line against City Colts.

Sadly for Causer his innings would be an unbeaten one for the wrong reason - he would depart the field 17 runs short of a century due to a dislocated knee.

Worse still for the Warriors it looks to be an injury that will rule Causer out for quite some time, though we won't know the extent until later this week.

It means vice captain Shaun Churchill has to step up and lead the way for the Orange City in the foreseeable future.

However, depth could once again to be a strong suit for the Warriors this year, with new recruits Josh Coyte and Lachie Skelly each producing excellent performances with the ball.

YOU can't imagine it would have taken Bathurst City skipper Mark Day long to decide that his side would opt to field in Saturday's game at Morse Park 2.

On a still-drying outfield and a challenging deck the opportunity was there for Bathurst City to really put Rugby under pressure, and they did just that.

The Rugby boys were rolled for just 114 in under 33 overs, with Matt Holmes (3-22) making the most of the conditions to have a successful debut with the team.

However, Rugby's bowlers capitalised on the conditions to have Redbacks all out for 73 - with Jonah Ruzgas (6-18) picking up the season's first five wicket haul.

It probably would be wise to read into these figures with a grain of salt but you've got to play to the conditions, and one side was able to do it just that little bit better than the other.

Keeping a close eye on the state of the wickets and outfields over what's expected to be a wet summer is going to be crucial.

Time will also tell as to whether Morse Park will continue to be hell on earth for batters or whether the pendulum starts to swing back towards favouring the willow.

BUILDING partnerships has sometimes been a struggle for City Colts in the BOIDC era and that was the case again in the opening game of this season.

Henry Shoemark hit 62 in the Colts' pursuit of Orange City's 179 but outside of Russ Gardner (12 from 33), who fed the strike well to his opener, no-one could hang around long enough.

Let's not be hasty with reactions though.

Mazharul Bhuian (0) never got the opportunity to try and build a connection with Shoemark as an opening partner, and both Josh Toole and Dan Casey will back themselves moving forward to either do the damage or support whoever is seeing it well.

On top of that, Warriors' Lachie Skelly (3-35) while Josh Coyte (2-13) proved tough to put away.

The result was a little bit of a revenge moment for the Warriors, who were knocked out by Colts in last season's finals, but the Bathurst team will hope they can be back to their best at the right time of the competition once more.

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