Tara Murray
Sunshine’s experience is proving vital in the Victorian Turf Cricket Association division 1 competition.
With days washed out, lack of training and no access to their home ground, the Crows could easily be excused for starting the season slowly.
But with plenty of motivation after a poor 2021-22 season and a key group of players, the Crows were one of two undefeated after three rounds.
Both sides lost on Saturday.
Speaking before the weekend’s game, Crows captain-coach Troy Stone said it had been a trying start to the season.
“We’ve adapted well,” he said.
“We’d like to get a bit more continuity with games and even training, we’ve trained twice in the last two weeks and done one fielding session total.
“We don’t have a ground at the moment and we’re playing away each week. One side of our ground has been underwater for three months.
“We will take on every challenge that comes our way.”
The Crows have a fairly new group with a number of new players joining the club during the off-season.
It hasn’t had an impact on results, with the Crows having three convincing wins to start the season.
Stone said they were fairly happy with how they were playing in the early rounds.
“We’ve got a resilient group, who are just moving on with it,” he said. “They just want to play cricket to be honest.
“We’ve got some experienced guys who turn up each and perform, which is a credit to them.
“We’ve developed a good bond so far and are building really well.”
Stone said their bowling needs some work, but knows that will come with more time in the middle after limited turf wicket training so far.
Kaushal Lokuarachchi has been the standout for the Crows so far with the bat, averaging 77 after three rounds, the best in the division.
“He has had significant innings in all three games with others stepping up in key moments,” Stone said.
“We went out and got some more players to take the workload off him, but credit to him stepping up each week.
“He might be getting older, but he’s also getting wiser.”
Stone said they will have some good tests before the Christmas break.
“Hopefully we can be 6-1 or at least 5-2 before Christmas, we will be happy. We have a couple of interesting games and we’re not sure our ground will be ready before Christmas.
“We’ll have some good tests to see where we are at.”
