TAMWORTH Blue is finding form at the right time of the season and has a few in-form players returning for its War Veterans Cup semi-final showdown with Narrabri at No.1 Oval tomorrow.
The Blue hammered Armidale by seven wickets a fortnight ago to secure its finals spot and is an even arguably stronger outfit than it was then with the inclusion of Emu and Central North quartet Nick Pearson, Luke Fox, Alex Jenkins and Will Howard.
Pearson was in great form on the Emus tour, notching a couple of centuries, and will only add to the batting strength that already exists with the likes of skipper Brendan Rixon, Simon Norvill, Adam Jones, Kris Halloran and Tim Kensell.
They make for a pretty strong top six with Fox at seven.
“It should be good,” Rixon said.
The winner will play Tamworth Gold in the final and, for the Blue, the prospect of having another crack at them is an enticing one.
But they’ve got to get past Narrabri first, and that won’t be easy.
“They’ll be up for it,” Rixon said. “We’ve just got to do the little things well.”
There’s still things they can do better.
“If we bat first be a bit more selective. We got a few out being a bit more attacking when we had time to play it out,” Rixon said.
They were only chasing 89 after Greg Kellett and Jake Baker ripped through
Armidale.
Rixon was tipping Kellett to be a key man with the ball tomorrow too.
“I think Kell will go pretty well against Narrabri,” he said.
“They traditionally haven’t gone too well against spin.”
He said he’d be looking for something around 250 if they bat first.
They can then put the pressure on.
Only he and Fox don’t regularly bowl so he’s got plenty of options.
The same could be said of Narrabri.
“We’ve got a team of allrounders,” skipper Craig Trindall said.
There’s probably only a couple of players who don’t bowl and a fair bit of variety among the ones that do.
The inclusion of Sam Bullen also brings another element – a left-hander.
Trindall will lead the attack and is the bowler the Blue are most wary of.
Last time he had the ball in his hands he claimed eight wickets in four overs.
It was only a Twenty20 game and a club fixture but if he can replicate some of that it will put Narrabri in good stead.
They have the blueprint for what they’ve got to do.
“We need early wickets,” Trindall said.
“Tamworth sides have quite long and deep batting
line-ups.”
“But a few early wickets puts people under pressure.”
He said he’s seen Tamworth teams in recent times fold under pressure.
“The real key is trying to restrict the Tamworth total,” he said.
“A par score for any Tamworth side is 250.
“Depending on the conditions, if we pull them up around the 200 mark we would have done a good job.”
But they’ve got to back it up with the bat and, while they also bat pretty deep, they need their top order to stand up.
“We’ve got to not lose early wickets and have got to have wickets in hand at the end,” Trindall said.
They were able to do that against Armidale earlier in the season and got the win.
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