MERBEIN captain Mark East believes there were a few factors at play in their round five match-up against Coomealla Wentworth, but says top scoring on 24 was “pretty embarrassing”.
Both teams were bowled out and a total of 22 wickets fell in just over 60 overs, in week one of the match.
“The pitch was a bit up and down but there was some good bowling out there and some terrible batting,” East said.
“Twenty-four is not a big score at all but that’s just a reflection on how the day went.”
East said his team would look to score quickly in week two, but would be wary of fast bowler Tauseef Kataria (4/13) who claimed many of Merbein’s top order.
“He got the ball moving early, pitched it up and gave it a chance to swing, we played a lot of loose shots outside off stump which brought the slips in to play,” East said.
“I’ve got a figure in my head but I don’t want to give it away, it’s more or less how many overs we need to bowl them out.
“The goal is to score quickly and give ourselves enough overs to bowl them out.”
For Merbein, English import Ben Green has continued to impress.
His 4/13 helped the team recover from an early Coomealla Wentworth onslaught.
East said he’d been impressed with Green’s ability to adjust to Australian conditions, which were completely different to what he’s used to.
“He’s been getting used to the conditions, getting some feedback from myself but the last couple of weeks, he’s really stepped up and bowled well,” East said.
Kurtis Fitzpatrick finds himself at the crease on two runs off 22 balls while nightwatchman Riley Clifford (zero not out) also survived one delivery.
Fitzpatrick has not registered a big score so far this season, but will undoubtedly hope to break that streak this weekend.
“We just got to concentrate on getting our batting right, if we can do that, I think we can shape the top four,” East said.
Merbein and Coomealla Wentworth will meet at Chaffey Park for week two action on Saturday at 1pm.
