LAST year’s grand finalists Woorinen will be looking to get their Kookaburra Cup season under way when they host a much-improved Swan Hill at Tigerland on Saturday.
It’s been a slow start to the season for the Tigers, having had the bye last weekend off the back of having their first game in round 4 against Wandella abandoned.
Swan Hill already have two matches under their belts, and although both ended in losses to St Mary’s-Tyntynder and Wandella, they were more than competitive in both games, suggesting they will be no pushover this season.
The Swans’ biggest area of improvement has been with the ball, having bowled out the highly rated Saints line-up for just 109, as well as having Wandella eight wickets down last Saturday before their meagre total of 93 was passed. The challenge for Swan Hill now lies with their form with the bat and their ability to post a score their improved bowling attack can defend.
Scoring just 93 runs from 40 overs while still having wickets in the shed simply isn’t good enough by modern standards – and won’t win too many games. The reality is Swan Hill probably would have had their first win of the season if they had been able to add 20 runs to their total last Saturday. A target of 120 has to be their aim going forward for the rest of the season.
Working the ball into the gaps and rotating the strike needs to be their starting point against a solid bowling attack that possesses Guri Singh, Robert Rush, Stefan Mangiameli and Glen Violi. The Swans’ batsmen won’t get many bad balls to put away, so they must be prepared to try to score off the good balls and take the game on.
The other big challenge for Swan Hill may not be known until Saturday morning, with off-spinner Ian Schodde under an injury cloud after hurting his calf during his team’s loss to Wandella last Saturday. Schodde (10 wickets at an average of 6.40) has been a revelation with the ball for the Swans this season and has opened the bowling with great affect. If Schodde misses, it will definitely be advantage Woorinen, and Swan Hill will have to find another weapon to take wickets at the top of the innings.
Ultima-TUF v St Mary’s-Tyntynder
Ultima-TUF Will finally get their Kookaburra Cup season under way on Saturday afternoon, but will have to do so against the competition benchmark.
With their match against Nyah District washed out last Saturday on the back of having the bye the previous weekend, Saturday’s game will be the Roodogs’ first one-dayer of the season. As such, it’s hard to get a read on exactly where Kade Benfield’s side are at and whether they are ready to become genuine finals contenders.
Their lack of match practice won’t help their cause, however their game style lends itself to the longer formats of the game and at least make them competitive against a Saints outfit that has rarely been challenged across the opening games of the season.
The Roodogs have enough class with the bat to challenge St Mary’s-Tyntynder, especially if Ben Shepherd suits up for his first game this year. Shepherd and middle-order run scorers Mitch Seton-Stewart, Kyle Symons and Kade Benfield are all capable of putting a solid score on the board, but the question must be how they go about defending it against an equally classy and dangerous Saints batting line-up.
St Mary’s-Tyntynder are without doubt the most attacking and dangerous teams in the league with the bat, capable of scoring quicker than any side if allowed to have wickets in hand come the second half of their innings. The Saints posted a very competitive 153 from their 40 overs against RSL last weekend, when three key batsmen, Jack Shannahan, Corey Daniels and Austin McKerrow, failed to reach double figures. What score the men from Ken Harrison Reserve could actually post should they all hit their straps together is a scary prospect.
Jordan King, last year’s league leading wicket-taker, will need to be at his best with the ball and must get early wickets if the Roodogs are to be any chance of causing an upset.
The Saints will go down a different path with the ball and look to make it hard for the Ultima-TUF batsmen to score. While the Saints might be aggressive with the bat, they can be quite the opposite with the ball, often bowling a very tight line and length in the limited overs formats and strangling teams as opposed to blasting them out. It’s this element of their game, along with the good early form of key bowlers Dom Violi, Robin Sebastian and Charlie King, that should get them over the line.
Wandella v RSL
Wandella will play their first home match of the season when they take on RSL at Riverside Park.
Despite a scare, the Bombers were too good for the improving Swan Hill last weekend, with match-winning knocks by Kaine O’Connell (29) and Ethan McKnight (24) helping get them over the line in a low-scoring contest. RSL had no such luck in their run chase against St Mary’s-Tyntynder, however, with only Ryan Hinton (28) and Todd Day-Henery (19) the only batsmen to trouble the scorers in the Blues’ total of 65 all out. The rest of the team’s contribution included five ducks in total.
It’s the one area of RSL’s game that must improve, especially with some of the talent at their disposal, and it needs to start before their season starts slipping away. Hinton is a class act and is just one big score away from making a statement, while Ben Hallam (57 runs against Nyah District in round 4) can also go big at the top of the order.
The Blues need more from the middle order and cannot rely on their openers to get them off to a flyer – as they did last Saturday.
The Blues are solid with the ball, with Cameron Cook, Pat Caldwell and hopefully Brenton Caldwell – who missed last week’s loss to the Saints – all able to run through an opposition batting line-up.
RSL, who are heading down the youth path this season, may have also found some depth to their attack, with both Billy and Jacob O’Meara claiming multiple wickets last Saturday in a good sign for the future.
Last year’s semi-finalist’s Wandella will pose a significant challenge, especially on their home patch, and will be confident of making it two wins from two games.
While the Bombers may have been less than impressive with the bat, they did enough to get the job done without a number of key batsmen, including captain Greg Dickson. The same couldn’t be said for their performance with the ball, having restricted the Swans to just 93 runs from their 40 overs on the batting paradise that is the Swan Hill Showgrounds. That form augurs well for the season ahead.
Ryan Barnes, who made a major impression on the league last season, has started the new season in form, claiming three wickets, while youngster Bohden McKnight also impressed with two poles. The battle between the pair of Wandella opening bowlers and RSL’s Hinton and Hallam is likely to go a long way towards deciding the outcome.
