By Tyler Lewis
“We feel like the rub of the green hasn’t gone our way in more than one game, we actually feel like we’ve run over a black cat or something like that.” Dandenong coach Warren Ayres.
Dandenong coach Warren Ayres feels like everything that possibly could go wrong to his side has, as it slumps to a zero and four start to the Victorian Premier Cricket season.
The Panthers once against suffered defeat on Saturday, this time to Northcote in a rain-effected one-day clash.
Ayres’ outfit was sent in and was going steadily at 4/126 off 35 overs – with Tom Donnell unbeaten on 58 – when the rain came and concluded the Panthers’ innings.
The Duckworth-Lewis Stern (DLS) re-evaluated the Panthers’ innings, leaving Northcote with a revised total, but the same amount of overs to bat.
Ayres feels the revised match scenario suited the opposition.
“It wasn’t easy, we were batting first and expecting the game to go 50 overs, then the rain comes at possibly the worst time,” he said.
“It set them up for an easy kill and that’s what they did, when you have to chase 170 off 30 odd overs, it makes it an extended twenty20 game.
“We’ll go through a lot of different scenarios and see what we can come up with; I don’t know where that’ll land right now.
“We’re trying different things different weeks, but feel everything we’re trying isn’t working too well.”
In terms of what’s going wrong for Dandenong, the coach has a simple answer… it’s everything.
“It would’ve been nice to be playing two-day cricket, we set up for two-day cricket – it just hasn’t been the case,” he said.
“We don’t make enough runs, we can’t take enough wickets, it’s pretty basic… we have to start getting the good batters out.
“We have some guys that are going well, but the batting is not going well enough… the bowling certainly isn’t going well enough to be able to take wickets and the fielding has been poor.
“It’s all three facets of the game.”
It’s not all doom and gloom for the side out of Shepley Oval however, with a quartet of players all earning the praise of coach Ayres.
“A few players have played quite well, obviously Tom (Donnell) would be leading that pack, but we’ve have good performances out Brett Forsyth and Sahan Perera,” he said.
“Also, Braden Taeuber has bowled really well too, so it’s not the end of the world.
“We feel like the rub of the green hasn’t gone our way in more than one game, we actually feel like we’ve run over a black cat or something like that.
“If we can just get our share of luck, or rub of the green somewhere along the way, we feel it will make it a lot more conducive.”
To make matters worse for Dandy, former Test-man James Pattinson will undergo surgery on a broken wrist and miss the next seven weeks of the season.
VIC PREMIER CRICKET LADDER
TEAM W D L PTS %
Northcote 4 1 0 25 2.6485
Melbourne 4 1 0 24 2.2811
Carlton 3 1 1 18 1.2024
St Kilda 3 1 1 18 0.8593
Casey-South Melbourne 2 2 1 15 1.3191
Prahran 2 1 2 14 1.1997
Essendon 2 1 2 14 1.0488
Ringwood 2 1 2 13 1.5435
Melbourne University 2 1 2 13 0.8734
Camberwell Magpies 2 1 2 12 0.949
Footscray 2 1 2 12 0.9402
Kingston Hawthorn 2 1 2 12 0.7059
Richmond 1 2 2 9 1.0039
Geelong 1 2 2 9 0.5519
Fitzroy Doncaster 1 1 3 8 0.811
Greenvale Kangaroos 1 1 3 7 0.83
Frankston Peninsula 0 2 3 4 0.55
Dandenong 0 1 4 2 0.4574
