Benalla Bushrangers has lost its round 11 match to Ovens Valley United in an A-grade two-day Wangaratta District Cricket Association game on Saturday.
Having been set an imposing target of 214 by United last weekend, the Bushrangers had a tough ask ahead of them as they went into the second day of the match requiring a win if they were any chance to push for a late finals run.
Benalla were bowled out in the 71st over of its innings for 157. Opening batter James Carboon top-scored for the Bushrangers with 38 runs from 133 balls.
Number four batter Daniel Brew also contributed with the bat as he hit 35 runs from 101 balls, including two fours. Unfortunately for the Bushrangers, despite digging in for the majority of the day’s play, they still fell 56 runs short of United’s total.
Club spokesperson for Benalla, Trever Saker, believes that despite the Bushrangers falling to their seventh loss for the season, he was proud of the side’s willingness to fight with bat in hand.
“Losing our coach Sunny early didn’t help,” he said.
“The fight shown by the rest of the team was encouraging. ‘Brewey’ got his best score for the year.”
“We showed a bit of fight and our batting was better than it had been in the previous few weeks.”
With finals now out of the picture, the Bushrangers must search for motivation to try and finish the season on a high. Saker believes finding consistency in their game while also disrupting finals contenders should be the side’s focus.
“We haven’t been very good in the field,” he said. “There are patches in games where we have brain fades and we just need more consistency across our batting and bowling.”
“In terms of the other teams we are playing most are in finals contention so it would be good to upset their finals plans.”
The Bushrangers face Delatite, City Colts and Rovers United Bruck in their final three rounds of the year.