Greenvale Kangaroos’ coach Stan Nell wants to finish the Victorian Premier Cricket season on a positive note.
The Kangaroos have improved dramatically over the last few years, and Nell doesn’t want to let the foot off the pedal in the two rounds remaining.
“I would like to finish strongly and continue the form that we’ve been showing,” he said. “I don’t want to peter out and fall away.
“Harry Dearden is heading back home to play county cricket, and this will give another young player an opportunity to step up.
“It’s a good time for someone to get their opportunity. They’ve got a season under their belt and have an opportunity to seal a spot in the starting XI for the start of next season.”
The Kangaroos’ slight finals hopes faded on Saturday when they lost to Casey-South Melbourne.
Having conceded first innings points on day one of the match – their fourth one-run loss of the season – the Kangaroos started day two looking for a reserve outright win. They should have secured first innings points, but lost 4-10, two runs short of victory.
Casey South Melbourne managed to put on 170 in their second innings and held a 171 lead going into the second innings.
Sunam Gautam was the pick of the Kangaroos’ bowlers taking 6-52 off 23.4 overs, which included seven maidens.
Nell said even at that stage they were looking to try and take an unlikely victory with 25 overs to bat.
“We changed our batting order around to our T20 order and we thought we would have a go at it.
“We lost three quick wickets and just thought, at that stage, we would bat the day out. I would have liked us to get off to a better start, but it didn’t happen.”
Nell said to come through with yet another close loss had been frustrating, but he hoped they would learn from it.
“I was speaking with the Casey-South Melbourne coach and he said they went through the same thing last year.
“Now, this year, they’re winning the close games. Hopefully, we can find that consistency needed to get the wins.”
The Kangaroos next match is against Ringwood.
