Pride up for grabs in final round match

CRICKET

TODAY’S Orange District Cricket Association first grade match between Kinross and Centrals won’t change where they finish on the ladder.

But there’s still plenty for the two teams to fight for.

In today’s final round match, Kinross will be hoping to record their second win of the season and build momentum towards an important school game.

Regardless of today’s result, Centrals will finish fourth on the ladder and Kinross will be fifth.

“Obviously it doesn’t count for first grade seedings at all,” Kinross player-coach Andrew Litchfield said.

“A lot of it is just playing for pride and showing they can compete.”

It might be Centrals who are looking for a little more pride after they lost to the students the last time they met in January.

In their round 11 fixture, Centrals struggled with the bat to be all out for 75 before Kinross made the winning runs with seven wickets in hand.

Chris Gavin took 4-13 before Nick Duffy top scored with the bat for Kinross with 40.

“We’d love to notch up another win in the grade competition,” Litchfield said.

Today’s game will also be a chance for the Kinross side to have one last hit out before they contest the Douglas Shield final on March 26.

On top of that, Charles Litchfield and Sam Nicholls are part of the Orange side contesting tomorrow’s Mitchell Cricket Council under 16s grand final against Bathurst and they want to take good form into the decider.

It won’t be an easy day for Centrals with the defending champions missing key players including Jarrod Simpson, Dan Sandford, Mark Wiegold and Nick Dunlop.

“We’ll go out there and have a crack and try to finish the season off well,” stand-in captain Mick Walker said.

“It’s fairly obvious why we haven’t done well this season, we haven’t had a core group of players to play week in, week out.

“It’d be good to finish with a win and start building for next season.”

Play in today’s one-day game at Kinross’ main oval will start at 1pm.