Royal Hotel Cup: Your team's report card ahead of second half of 2019-20 tournament

The performances of this summer's marquee players have been something to behold too as, thanks to the ongoing drought, the Wade Park wicket has become harder, flatter and more batter-friendly.

But how has each team fared so far, as a whole?

Amid the Christmas break that's what we're looking at, with some teams earning exemplary grades and some others at the complete opposite end of the scale.

Being undefeated and guaranteed a spot in the finals is grounds enough to hand out the highest mark possible, more so when you the consider the fashion in which they've secured their three consecutive victories.

They provided an early-tournament shock by knocking off reigning champions St Pat's Old Boys, picked up a rain-affected win over Centrals before annihilating Centennials Bulls in their final game before Christmas.

They've improved with every start and the third victory sent an ominous message as Mick Delaney (111 from 61 balls) and Sam Dwyer (71 from 32) led their side to a whopping total of 3-220, the second-biggest score since the tournament moved to the Twenty20 format.

CYMS actually hold that record too, they bludgeoned 4-240 against Molong back in 2015-16.

Their final showdown of the preliminary stage, the competition's 10^th game, against the also-undefeated Orange City will be their biggest test so far and could well be a grand final preview.

Last summer's beaten grand finalists are once again living up to their reputation as one of Orange's premier Twenty20 sides, they're one win from cementing a finals spot and having the chance to make a fifth decider appearance and, potentially, win a second title.

The Warriors comfortably took down Centennials in a somewhat anti-climactic opening to the tournament on a Sunday afternoon in October, then showed how powerful they are in defying Ben Sheehan's ton to chase almost 170 against Lithgow.

As above, their game 14 showdown with CYMS on January 24 could be telling. They do have the luxury of facing Centrals after that though, so a loss to the rampant green and golds wouldn't be the end of the world.

Sadly we didn't get to see Bathurst City potentially cement their spot in the 2019-20 finals last week after their clash with Lithgow was postponed due to the deteriorating air quality in Orange, but still, Redbacks have done enough to earn excellent marks.

Undefeated through to games like Orange City, they trail the Warriors only on net run rate having knocked off Kinross and then Cavaliers, the latter thanks to a remarkable performance with the bat from Ben Patterson.

While they'd have liked to guarantee that finals berth before Christmas the break might not be such a bad thing for Joey Coughlan's side, who were set to battle unavailability, and might be able to field their strongest side in both remaining preliminary games now.

The maroons are on track to make another finals appearance with two wins from their three starts, the only blemish being a loss to a Bathurst City side inspired by boom marquee Ben Patterson, a former Cavaliers' ring-in.

That defeat was bookended by a tournament-opening, high-scoring victory over Centrals and a strong, chasing victory over St Pat's Old Boys, the latter of which all but ended the reigning champions' title defence.

They look substantially more dangerous with marquee player Ben Mitchell in their line-up and certainly look capable of giving the tournament a shake, in fact you can probably lock them in to the top four because they shouldn't be troubled by Kinross in the new year.

Is failing the Saints harsh, considering they have won a game this summer?

No, it's not, fact it's the only mark they could get considering they're reigning champions and their title defence is all but over after being handed a defeat by the Ben Mitchell-led Cavaliers, their second loss of the summer.

Sure, the Saints are still a mathematical chance of playing in the finals but it's hardly realistic.

They'll have to beat Bathurst City but they're relying on a swag of other results to fall their way and some of those games are scheduled in the lead-up to their final preliminary stage showdown with Redbacks, so they might be bounced out of the title race before that clash.

Going back-to-back was always going to be tough considering the Saints lost their two best-performed from last summer's title in Nic Broes and Mitchell, but it's as if they're without star power, Tanvir Singh and Jameel Qureshi are a powerful set of marquee players.

They've focused on having the chance to give some up-and-comers valuable experience and that is a positive, but if they miss the finals one season after hoisting the trophy, that can't be the basis for a successful campaign.

If the seemingly-impossible happens and they make the finals I'll happily tuck into a nice, big portion of humble pie though.

By no means have they played badly this summer, it's just impossible to compare their 2019-20 campaign to anything but last summer's title.

With a win and a loss, the Lightning's fate remains in their own hands and you could easily argue they were a touch unlucky to not be among the undefeated outfits.

Their first-up victory over Kinross was a breeze but then they were met by a rampant Orange City top order who ran down almost 170 with a handful of overs to spare, defying Ben Sheehan's ton to do so.

When you've got a bat making a century and you're posting almost 170, that's hardly the mark of an out-of-form side, is it? Especially when that ton-maker admits his side couldn't do anything about the Warriors' chase, it was just that good.

It would've been interesting to see how they fared against Bathurst City last week but we'll have to wait until the new year now, but Lithgow can't be ruled out just yet. They play Centennials in their other preliminary stage game.

Centrals are winless and they're virtually guaranteed to miss the finals so on face value their campaign so far probably demands a fail, but there's more to it considering the circumstances.

Centrals have largely struggled in this form of the game and, despite a small sample size, their performance has improved on previous seasons' while they've also been on the wrong end of Mother Nature, a rare occurrence considering the ongoing drought.

Zach Bayliss' half-century helped them go within inches of chasing a sizable total against Cavaliers before they were beaten in a Duckworth-Lewis-Stern decided clash with CYMS, and they looked to be somewhat hard done by in those calculations.

History shows the 140-odd they made against CYMS is below par, sure, but it's impossible to say what could have happened if the heavens didn't open that night.

They have two games left and look a real shout at taking down Centennials and while they're probably not going to knock off heavyweights Orange City, there's always a chance.

Basically I'm saying there's a real feeling of what could have been about Centrals' tournament.

With that and their improvement in mind, I don't think a title would've been a realistic goal this summer, I don't think branding their campaign a complete failure would be just.

Kinross are winless and unable to make the finals and those defeats have all been reasonably convincing, so we don't need to say too much here.

Another difficult campaign for the students, they did manage to make almost 150 in a losing chase against Lithgow, but that's hardly a highlight.

They haven't set the world on fire but like so many of the other sides on the lower end of this scale they've not performed badly, they're only below Kinross because they have a game in hand on the students too.

They deserve credit for fighting their way back from the brink. They didn't initially nominate for the Bathurst-Orange Inter-District Cricket competition but eventually mustered enough players to field a side, all of whom turn out in this tournament too.

Considering that, we can't evaluate their efforts against their goal to win the tournament because that never looked realistic, a finals appearance was perhaps the more likely end result, which would back-up last summer's miraculous finals berth.

They blew the cobwebs out in a tournament-opening loss to Orange City and were then on the end of a special performance from CYMS, still making 170-odd in their chase in the latter game too, which is no mean feat.

It's impossible to give them anything more than a low, low pass mark because they did play finals last summer and that won't happen in 2019-20, but if they manage to win their last two games against Centrals and Lithgow then you'd definitely consider that a mid-level pass.