JOSH Berry says he is excited about where Mildura East’s burgeoning young list can take the club this Sunraysia Cricket Association season.
Going into last season East were rocked by some high-profile departures.
Innes medalist Brad Thomas crossed with former club co-coach Shaun Mathews to Nichols Point, while Tom Vadlja – himself a co-coach the season before and one of the district’s greats of the sport – played a single game.
In a tough time for the club Berry stood up and took on the role of captain-coach.
“It was a good learning curve for me … just before I took it on we had an exodus of players, experienced players, that left us in a bit of a hole I suppose,” Berry said.
“But I think that was a good thing for me, I got to take on a fresh list and a lot of young talent to work with, so I thought it was a perfect time for me to be able to come in and I suppose shape and mould the group to how I want them to look and play going forward.”
Berry said the younger talent coming through the club – particularly the bowling stocks – was like a breath of fresh air.
“They’ve been exciting to work with, that gets me up and about and wanting to get down to training to help them improve and become better cricketers,” he said.
“We didn’t have a lot of wins last year but at times I felt we were pretty competitive, and it’s off the back of the young talent we’ve got – your Jayden Hunts and Zane Hunts, Jhy and Charlie Berry, and even Aaron Cordell and Lochie Symes stood up as well last year and put in performances that you thought ‘Jeez you’ve got a bit to work with here’.
“It’s just about us working with them and getting them to find that consistency week-in, week-out performing in First Division cricket, once they find that it’s exciting and these are players we can work with to hopefully create our next premiership.”
Batting-wise a lot fell on Berry last season as that senior leader who could consistently build an innings, but Berry backed the younger players to be able to improve their batting side of the game.
“It’s something as a whole we can all improve on, when you are working with young blokes like Jhy and Jayden and even Charlie and Zane, they’ve all got good batting techniques,” he said.
“Instead of pigeon-holing them as just a bowler, our aim is to turn them into really good all rounders, they can improve their batting while they are young to become that bowling all-rounder that can be a very good batsman.”
All three of East’s wins last season came in the short form of the game, with Berry saying that format suited his team.
“We know what our strengths and weaknesses are, this season we need to make sure we are posting totals that are good enough that we take a bit of pressure off our bowlers and can defend those totals,” he said.
One thing East have is pride in their multiculturalism – with Berry noting a few of the Indian players at the club that are spread through the grades have shown promise as shotmakers in the shorter forms of the game.
East have a stern test first up on October 31 against reigning First Division premiers Mildura Settlers.
“It’s something I say to the boys, too. That’s a club that have been the benchmark in the past 10 years and have had that sustained success,” he said.
“That’s something we want to mirror-image, we want to become in the next 10 years a club like that, we don’t just want to win the one flag in one grade, we want to be strong and successful over our top four senior grades and constantly winning premierships.”
