Tara Murray
After a couple of tough seasons, the Greenvale Kangaroos have started the Victorian Turf Cricket Association division 2 season on a positive note.
Having dropped from senior division in 2017-18 to division 2 this season, there hasn’t been a lot of joy for the Kangaroos recently.
But with the team sitting 1-1 and having won their T20 opener, new captain-coach Kyle Adams said he was happy with how things were going so far.
“I’m enjoying it,” he said.
“The side hasn’t won many matches the last few years, so they need to learn how to win matches again and enjoy it.
“The T20 was a good win and it was good to see how they went about it. We ran hard between the wickets and there was some good fielding.
“In round one, one guy made 80 of 130 and batted superbly. We didn’t bat amazingly, but I’m not bothered with that performance.
“We showed the week after what we could do and 1-1 is a good start.“
Adams, the club’s former premier first XI skipper, said he was only starting to coach the group in the past few weeks with COVID-19 restrictions easing.
“It’s been good, but it’s been hard with COVID protocols and we’ve been training in small groups,” he said.
“Things are starting to get easier and we’re getting into more coaching and seeing how things are happening.
“I’m enjoying it and it’s a good little challenge.”
Adams has worked with some of the younger players in the premier program in recent years and was keen to get into coaching.
One area he wants to improve is the connection between the club’s premier and VTCA programs.
“I want to provide a pathway from local cricket through to the premier set-up,” he said.
“I want them to overlap a bit more. They do their training separately and a lot of the premier guys don’t know the locals and vice versa.
“They’re starting to close the gap with a group of the premier guys watching our T20. Some of our first XI guys watched the premier cricket before our match.
“It’s only going to improve”
He highlighted 15-year-old Ivan Zmak as someone who might be able to take the step up into premier cricket.
Zmak has taken five wickets in the two one-day matches and another two in the T20 win.
“He looked like a real good talent and I don’t think we’ll have him for long,” Adams said.
“Already in three matches he has improved massively.”
After so many tough seasons, Adams said the focus this season was on playing their own games and everything else would take care of itself.
“We want players to be focusing on their own game and getting better,” he said.
“Making individual players get better and improve week in week out, we’ll win more than we lose.”
The Kangaroos faced Sydenham-Hillside on Saturday.
The Storm made 162, with Matthew Kent taking 4-37 for the Kangaroos.
All the Kangaroos top order got starts as they managed to reach 6-145 before the rain started to fall.
The Kangaroos claimed the win via the Duckworth-Lewis system.
In senior division, Westmeadows stunned Yarraville Club.
The Clubbers made 8-174 on the back of James Damjanovski making 71 at the top of the order.
Aaron Evans took three wickets for the Warriors.
The Warriors made the runs with seven balls remaining, finishing 6-177.
Chinthaka Jayasinghe (61) and Danny Law (61 not out) were the keys in the chase.
In division 1, Craigieburn lost to Sunshine and Tullamarine lost to Deer Park.
Roxburgh Park got a win in division 5 against East Coburg and Jacana suffered a big loss to Gellibrand.
