THE Kookaburras are ready to push for their first win of the Gunnedah cricket season this coming Saturday as the competition winds up its first segment of two-day fixtures.
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Mornington and the Kookaburras remain without a win in the one-day and two-day fixtures so far, meaning one team should break that drought – with a first innings or outright win – while the second-placed Albion tries to upstage ladder leader Court House.
With the Kookaburras having racked up 221 runs for the loss of eight wickets at Kitchener Park while Brad Jenkinson, Bon Winsor and captain Paddy Paul were missing, stand-in captain Troy Sands had reason to be satisfied.
It was a far cry from the previous round when the Kookaburras crumbled for 48 and 46 against Court House.
Sands said it was a straightforward decision to bat first against Mornington, and he considered his team “batted really well” although “there was a bit of inconsistent bounce”.
“Even though we batted ordinarily the past couple of weeks, things didn’t go our way,” Sands said.
“We’ve bowled and fielded well.”
Looking ahead to day two of the current fixture, Sands was wary of some of Mornington’s batsmen, saying “Tariq Habib can bat all day” while Sam Lumby was handy.
“The game’s far from over. We’ve still got to bowl well,” Sands said.
Albion’s James Mack and Court House’s Matt Brady meanwhile considered the match at Wolseley Park was unlikely to feature an outright result.
With Albion having lost the toss, Mack said the pitch “turned into more of a good batting deck than we originally thought”.
“We thought there was going to be a bit more in it,” he said.
Mack deemed that Albion “bowled too short at times. That was probably our biggest problem” as Court House added 89 runs for the final three wickets after crashing from 0-37 to 7-71.
Mack considered Court House had a good bowling line-up while Albion had a good batting line-up.
“It’s a matter of everyone putting their hand up to get the job done,” he said after Albion lost a wicket with the final ball of day one, making the score 1-14 at stumps.
Brady said the pitch “wasn’t too bad to bat on” and that “I think you sort of had to settle in and wait for a bad ball”.
Brady deemed that his team wanted to dismiss Andy Mack early on day two, as the left-handed opener would be “the key wicket”.
Brady sensed that “I think we’re a fair chance of rolling ‘em” on day two.
“I think our bowling depth’s as good as it’s been for a long while,” Brady said.