CRICKET
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CENTRALS vice-captain Adam Shepherd and evergreen quick Mark Wiegold are more desperate than anyone to score a win in Friday night’s Royal Hotel Cup decider against Cavaliers, for good reason.
They’re the only two of the current Centrals crop who have tasted any real success in day-night cricket and they want that feeling again.
Shepherd skippered Centrals and Wiegold opened the bowling in the club’s last, and only, day-night title win in 2002-03 and since then they’ve witnessed their beloved side go from the penthouse to the proverbial.
Outside a final appearance in 2011-12 - they were thumped by Cavaliers - Centrals have struggled in day-night cricket, particularly in the Twenty20 format.
“We beat Orange City in 2002-03 on a wet night if I remember correctly, we rolled them for 70-odd and got them three or four down,” Shepherd recalled.
“I don’t remember, I’ll take your word for it,” Wiegold laughed.
“The culture at the club is still the same (as 2002-03), but there’s certainly been a lot of different faces, a lot of different friendships over that time,” Shepherd added.
“There’s been times where we’ve struggled and the chips have been down, but we always seems to get back up.”
“There’s a lot more youth this time around, we’re a lot younger,” Wiegold said, referring to the likes of skipper Jake Pauletto and young guns Zac Reimer and Josh Coyte.
On this year’s form and past performances - Cavaliers’ unprecedented record of 15 day-night titles - Shepherd said the maroons boast favouritism on Friday night.
Form basically goes out the window though, considering Cavaliers and Centrals haven’t played a T20 game since early January and mid-December respectively, thanks to rain and last weekend’s NRL trial forcing the final to be pushed back.
“I think it’ll be a different deck to what we’ve played on so far this year,” Shepherd said.
“But in dry conditions I think it’s all about runs on the board for us. Cavaliers deserve favouritism but we’re there, we’ve worked hard in this format, so we’ll give it a red hot crack.
“We’ve had some good battles with Cavaliers over the years and no matter what I think it’ll be a good game.
“Hopefully we can put on a show, we’ve got nothing to lose.”
Friday night’s final kicks off at 6.30pm.
CENTRALS: Jake Pauletto (c), Will Oldham, Dean Turner, Adam Shepherd, Chris Hutchinson, Josh Coyte, Jack Dodds (wk), George Olsen, Matt Burgess, Daryl Kennewell, Zac Reimer, Mark Wiegold
CAVALIERS: Richie Venner (c), Chris Martin, Greg Martin, John Warrington, Will Currall, Brad Wright, Scott Kennedy, Josh Doherty, Stu Middleton, Tom Aggett, Matt Corben (wk), Mark Maybin.
