Tara Murray
Epping’s premiership hopes are evenly balanced after day one of the Diamond Valley Cricket Association Barclay Shield grand final.
Facing Rosanna, in the battle of the top two teams all season, the match lived up to the hype on day one.
Pingers coach Daniel Bramich said he was reasonably happy after the first day of play.
“It’s pretty even, which you expect with the top two teams on the field,” he said.
“It was in our favour early in the day and then Rosanna batted pretty well, especially considering we’re playing in a final.”
Rosanna won the toss and decided to bat. After losing two early wickets, Rosanna went on to make 9-173 from its 80 overs.
Josh Henkel took four wickets for the Pingers.
Bramich said they were able to stick to their plan early to put the pressure back on Rosanna.
“The first focus for us all season was to get two wickets in the first 10 overs,” he said.
“We can dictate play a bit more. We were able to get those early wickets and were able to restrict their runs.”
The Pingers were able to get some wickets late to restrict Rosanna and keep its total under 200.
Bramich said it was a funny day with the weather and definitely not what they expected.
He said there was a breeze from one end which Rosanna attacked which resulted in wickets falling.
Bramich said the side takes plenty of confidence into day two of the match, believing they can get the win and the premiership.
“We are still very confident going into next week,” he said.
“The one thing that hasn’t really clicked for us in every game is our batting, but we saw how we batted against Rosebank.
“We were in trouble early, but still got 200 on the board. Eltham is pretty similar to our game and if we play our best we should be able to chase them down.”
The Pingers second XI is also in grand final action this weekend, playing in the B-grade grand final. Unlike the first XI being played across two weekends, it was played on Saturday and Sunday.
The Pingers made 9-147, with Diamond Creek 1-41 after 25 overs.
