Tara Murray
Taylors Lakes captain-coach Alex Deuchar is hoping his side will start to find some form with the bat in the Victorian Sub-District Cricket Association east-west.
The Lions lost their first two matches with below par batting after the first five weeks of the season were washed out.
Deuchar admits that the wet weather has played a role in the side’s performances in the first few weeks.
While he knows that the club is not alone with ground struggles due to the rain, it’s something that has left them behind the eight-ball.
“In the first XI, to be honest I don’t think we’re trained on turf,” he said. “There’s been no centre wicket practice.
“We’ve been training on outdoor synthetic and indoor synthetic and have not made the adjustment.
“We haven’t adjusted to the moving ball on the slower surface and said there have been a few soft dismissals.”
Deuchar said they were hoping the weather would dry up to allow their curator to get them on the centre wicket pitch and be able to spend some more time on turf.
The club was back training indoors last Tuesday, as more rain hit the area, while there was heavy rain on Wednesday and Thursday as well.
Deuchar said they were hoping that the guys had adjusted enough to have a bigger impact with the bat against Spotswood and Hoppers Crossing this weekend.
“Hopefully we will turn it around quickly,” he said. “We’ve got two games under our belts and we’ve got two tough challenges.
“Spotswood and Hoppers Crossing are two good teams.”
Deuchar said outside of the results, things were tracking really positively at the club. A new president has taken over and he was doing a mountain of work to help improve the place even further.
“There’s a strong culture,” he said.
“The club is in a strong position. The first XI set the tone for the rest of the boys.
“We’re doing a mid-week strength conditioning now. We’re training Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays.”
While the first XI has had a tough start to the season, there has been some positive signs in their thirds and fourths in their most recent match.
It’s all about being positive with the bat,” Deuchar said.
“The thirds and fourths on the weekend were excellent.
“Our fourths made 260 odd and defended it easily. Our thirds had a close game which they won.
“In our under-18 turf side our second XI keeper [Ethan Brne] made a maiden 100 and hit more boundaries than he normally would.
“We want players to be as free as possible and go out and execute the game plan. It’s white ball cricket for the first nine games so we need to be positive and go out and set the tone when we bat first and be really attacking and get ahead of the run rate when we’re chasing to take the pressure off.”
