By JARROD POTTER
CRANBOURNE North is jam-packed full of cricket talent with Kevin Seth and Reilly Mark rising to the peak of junior indoor cricket.
Seth, 13, and Mark, 12, live less than a kilometre from each other and recently shared Victorian duties at the Junior Indoor Cricket Championships.
Battling the rest of Australia, the Victorian under-13s were able to muscle their way past the likes of South Australia, Western Australia and the dreaded rivals New South Wales to take the championship.
“We went really well and finished on top,” Seth said.
“We lost the first game, but we won every single game after that.
“It was great – we met a lot of new people, lots of friends from new teams and we bonded – our team especially – we were kind of like a family and (it) was good.
For his all-round efforts at the championships, Seth was named in the Australian indoor under-13 side and Mark also received a call-up to the Australian A side to head up to Brisbane later this year.
The hard hitters love their indoor cricket – preferring the high-action variant over other winter sports.
“It’s fast paced, you can play three games in a day – half the time of an outdoor game – the ball is always live so you have to be on top of your feet,” Mark said.
YouTube went into a meltdown with the vision of the boys’ Victorian teammate Jake Fraser-McGurk taking a double-hat trick, but the Cranbourne tandem impressed in their own more subtle way. Seth made 48 in a four-over stint with his batting partner and in one innings took four-for-negative-nine while Mark had an exceptional plus-20 performance.
As a bottom ager Mark will get another chance to pull on the Victorian colours at the under-13 level while Seth will kick on to the under-15s after his Australian duties conclude.
The duo will feature in the World Indoor Cricket Federation World Junior Series – heading up to Brisbane in September to clash in a quadrangular tournament between Australia, Australia A, New Zealand and South Africa.
