It\u2019s been a long season, complete with heated-out days, bushfires, brilliant innings and cracking catches, but it\u2019s at last time for Wangaratta and District Cricket Association finals.<\/p>\n
This weekend, the A grade race for the flag heats up, with the top four squads taking to the park for the postseason, where the margins for error are slim to none, and for Rovers United Bruck\u2019s A grade side, it\u2019s time to prove they\u2019re the best.<\/p>\n
After smashing Ovens Valley United by 124 runs last weekend to close out the home and away season, the Hawks take on the Tigers once more this weekend, with nothing less than a spot in the grand final up for grabs. <\/p>\n
Skipper Jeremy Wilson said the squad was eager to play finals cricket.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe finished off the season really well last week, and we can\u2019t wait to get stuck into hopefully the next two weeks,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhether you\u2019re new to it or whether you\u2019re experienced, it doesn\u2019t really change the fact that this is when you really want to step up and put your best foot forward.<\/p>\n
\u201cFrom a mental capacity, the game doesn\u2019t change, it\u2019s just about how you view it.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou\u2019ve got to free your mind of that extra pressure that comes with making mistakes, that\u2019s all you can do.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou\u2019ve got to try as best you can to play cricket the way you have for the last four months.<\/p>\n
\u201cGenerally, the team that does that better wins the games.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Hawks have been the clear premiership favourites for the entire season, only having dropped the one match on their way to finishing top of the table.<\/p>\n
Their opening pairing of Charith Perera (334 runs @ 37.10) and Ryan Collier (292 @ 36.50) form the backbone of the Hawks\u2019 batting, with an average first-wicket partnership of 37.90 for the season.<\/p>\n
Throw in the experience of Jacob Schonafinger and Matt Whitten, along with the raw talent and potential of Reid McNamara, and you\u2019ve got a recipe for a potent batting line-up.<\/p>\n
With the ball, the entire attack contributed, with McNamara, Schonafinger, Jeremy Wilson, Will Graham and Blake Nixon all chipping in through the year.<\/p>\n
Nixon will be one to watch, fresh off career best figures of 5\/14.<\/p>\n
The Hawks will face fourth-ranked Ovens Valley United at WJ Findlay Oval this weekend, just a week after they decimated the Tigers batting to wipe them out for 66.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou can\u2019t really take much out of their batting performance from last week, and I\u2019d say they\u2019d be pretty keen to skip by it, which is natural when that happens,\u201d Wilson said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat can happen to anyone, it happens at international level, let alone local level.<\/p>\n
\u201cFrom a batting point of view, we got to see they\u2019ve got a lot of options with the ball, so that was good.<\/p>\n
\u201cBowling-wise, we didn\u2019t see a lot from their batters. <\/p>\n
\u201cNothing will change from us, we\u2019ll just keep on doing what we\u2019re doing.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ll just bowl our line and length, and we don\u2019t chase wickets.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ll just stick to our plans and go from there.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It\u2019s been a long season, complete with heated-out days, bushfires, brilliant innings and cracking catches, but it\u2019s at…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":535608,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[564],"tags":[64,63,740,85],"class_list":["post-535607","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cricket","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-cricket","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/535607","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=535607"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/535607\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/535608"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=535607"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=535607"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=535607"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}