FLEXIBILITY is a luxury Mildura Settlers captain Braidyn Turner has as the Sunraysia Cricket Association resumes this weekend.
The ladder leaders travel to Irymple for a top-two encounter in First Division on Saturday in the first of three one-day fixtures to start the new year, with Turner happy to change things up for the short format.
“We have a different sort of batting line-up: Paddy (Keogh) bats at three in the two-dayers but I love him when he opens the batting in the one-dayers because he has those 40 overs and when he gets going he really gets going, which is good,” he said.
“We’ve got (Mark) Cleary, Richie (Wyld), Will Rodgers and (John Pratt) and all that – I pretty much pad four of them up at once.
“Then we go on match-ups: who is bowling, how many wickets have we lost, how many overs are left?
“That’s the freedom I have – if Pratty is batting and there’s a wicket I can send Will Rodgers in and they can turn ones into twos; if we want boundaries I can chuck in Cleary and Tarque (Williamson) – it’s pretty good to have.”
Settlers will be without the unavailable Luke Stanbrook this week and the experienced Travis Shawcross will miss a few weeks with a shoulder complaint.
Young all-rounder Seamus Keogh is also set to come back through the Second Division as a batsman, still unable to bowl as he recovers from a foot injury.
“I’m sure if he’s ready to go and bat he’ll probably start in the twos this week, then hopefully he gets a few runs and can push for selection with us,” Turner said.
On the challenge of facing the second-placed Swallows on their home deck, Turner said he was looking forward to a big start to the year.
“They are obviously one of the top three sides of the comp,” he said.
“They have great batsmen, great bowlers – if (Dan Coghlan) is playing they have a great spinner.
“They have the three phases – fielding, batting and bowling – top-notch so it’s going to be a good test to start back up again.”
