SITTING second on the Red Cliffs Cricket Association ladder towards the halfway mark of the A Grade season is a good result for Nursery Ridge, according to captain Jackson Parker.
Following a high turnover of players and fielding close to a new team, combined with multiple changes every week, Parker is happy with the club’s 4-2 record heading into their final game of the year.
Ridge host defending champions Ouyen Rams at the Onion Patch at Quandong Park for a top of the table clash before they have the bye next week, ahead of Christmas.
“It will be interesting to see how we go, we played them in Ouyen last time on the concrete pitch and they obviously know how it plays out there,” Parker said.
“We scored 134 in that game, we thought it would be enough but they took us to town.
“It’s always a good game between us because they’re such a good team and we’re always pretty competitive, and we’ll see how it goes on turf.”
Ridge suffered losses to Tempy and Ouyen in rounds three and four, but have won two tight games since, including a two-wicket win over Tempy last week.
While no one player has passed 100 runs for the season for Ridge, Jason Finch and Brad Purdue each have 10 wickets while vice-captain Zac Heath has eight, four of those coming last week.
“We’ve had some good games and some performances that could be better but we know what parts of our game we have to improve on,” Parker said.
“There’s been a big turnover of players this year and we almost have a completely new team and having so many changes week to week we really haven’t played with the same team.
“It was hard to know exactly where we would be sitting because it was such a new side but I was certainly hoping to be in the top three, so we’re pretty happy with that.
“The close games can obviously go either way so it’s good for us to know that we can come through when it’s tough.”
Saturday’s other A Grade clash sees Millewa hosting Tempy at Quandong Park.
