MOLONG could be the team to beat in this season’s Royal Hotel Cup competition.
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It remains unbeaten in the Pool B division after downing Kinross by six wickets with four balls to spare on Friday night.
Molong scored a four-run win over CYMS in its opening match last month and backed it up with a second victory last week to fit on top of the Pool B ladder.
Molong player Trent Frazer said his teammates were excited about their winning start.
“We’ve exceeded all expectations now,” Frazer said.
“We didn’t go in hoping for these results. It’s good we can be competitive.”
Kinross batted first at Wade Park on Friday night and performed well to make 4-141.
Opener Charlie Litchfield (29) and Nick Lukins (43) made a good opening stand of 52 before Tom Bristow was able to chip in with 48.
Waz Fazarkely tested the young Kinross bats taking 3-32 off his four overs.
He was the only Molong bowler to take wickets after Louis Kostoglou was run out.
“We were a bit surprised they scored that many,” Frazer said of the Kinross total.
“They’re just so young and fit. They were that quick between the wickets. They ran that many twos and threes and it added up. We didn’t bowl badly. They put pressure on us with their running.”
Frazer opened the batting for Molong and carried his bat to finish the 20 overs on 74 not out off 54 balls.
Nigel Brazier (25) pushed the total up and Glen Miller (13no) scored the winning runs with a four to get Molong to 4-143.
“We needed 14 off the last three overs so we knew we were there,” Frazer said.
Sam Nicholls took 2-27 off his four overs while Chris Gavin finished with 1-24 from his four.
Kinross player-coach Andrew Litchfield was happy with his team’s performance despite the loss.
“It was a really good game. Congratulations to Molong, they played well,” Litchfield said.
“We had good running between the wickets. We did what we wanted to do which was eliminate dot balls and score off every ball.”
Litchfield said Frazer’s knock was key.
“Trent Frazer just batted really well. We probably just didn’t bowl the right length to him but we’ll learn from that,” he said.
Molong sits on top of the Pool B ladder with two wins from two games and 10 points.
Kinross is second on six points and the top two from each pool go through to February’s semi-finals.
“Molong will give a few sides a shake,” Litchfield said.
Frazer said they weren’t getting ahead of themselves.
“We’ll just take every game as it comes. The guys aren’t getting cocky,” Frazer said.
“We’ll just see how far we can go.”
Molong will take on Centrals in its last pool match next month.
The next Royal Hotel Cup game will be played this Friday between Cavaliers and Gladdy-Metro-Tahs.