WITH the Barber Shield cricket grand final upon us, the two captains – North Sportsman’s Tim Young and Penola’s Jase Bateman – are obviously both keen to take to the Frew Park ground tomorrow.
For the reigning champions North it has been another solid season, which Young said was going well.
Despite the exclusion of main strike bowler Josh Fidler due to injury, Young was not too concerned, with plenty of others able to stand up and get the job done.
He said the failed Twenty20 grand final was motivation to claim the big one this weekend.
“Not playing the One Day Cup this year was a bit disappointing,” he said.
“Then we were extremely disappointed with the Twenty20 result.
“We thought we would give that a real crack but had one bad game.
“But the main one is to win this Barber Shield.
“We know how good it is on the Sunday night and the whole year afterwards when you win.
“We definitely want to win again – we have won two of the last three and it has been awesome.”
Young said the key to victory could lie with North’s opening bats.
“Our openers Matt (McInerney) and Jake (Schutz), they have made all our runs this year,” he said.
“It really depends on how they go how our score goes.
“They both went well on the weekend and we made 240.
“But we have other experienced players like Gavin Coon, Michael Johnston, Nick McInerney … just a matter of them firing.”
For Bateman, it is a huge game, with Penola having been delegated to the wilderness since the 1990-91 season.
“Everyone at Penola is pretty excited about it,” he said.
“It has been a while.
“It is a passionate cricket club and we are a bit isolated up there, so everyone is looking forward to it, but there is a long way to go.”
Bateman thought the key to the game would be runs on the board, but had faith in his bowling attack.
“Our bowling has been a plus this year,” he said.
“Our batting has let us a down a bit, but our bowlers always support us.
“But at the end of the day runs on the board will get us over the line.
“I think both sides have the ability to back up with the ball, so it will come down to runs on the board.”
Whatever the result comes down to, there is sure to be plenty of action at Frew Park this weekend, kicking off tomorrow at 1pm.
