By Jonty Ralphsmith
Clyde has put itself in a strong position to bank its first win of the season after posting 315 against Devon Meadows in round 5 of the Casey Cardinia Cricket Association.
The Cougars were led by a century to skipper Trevor Bauer, with partnership batting critical to the flow of the innings.
Bauer scored 116 off 211 balls, putting pressure on the opening spell before piercing the gaps and running hard through the middle overs.
An 80-run opening stand with Kane Avard (42) gave Clyde the early momentum, before Bauer partnered with Michael Vandort (29) and Anurudda Fonseka (62).
While the score gives Clyde the upper hand, a mini-collapse of 4/14 late in the day restricted a score that appeared would approach 400 for much of the day.
The Panthers will go in to next week with a degree of confidence, having posted a match-winning 270 against Tooradin last game, regarded by some as the best bowling lineup in the competition.
Playing at Glover Reserve, Bauer’s men were proactive with the bat throughout the innings which enabled them to post 53 more runs taking minimal risk than in their five wicket loss to Pakenham in round 4.
“What we learned from the Pakenham innings is we started off too slowly so going into this week we wanted to make sure we were positive from ball one and putting away the bad balls and through the middle overs increase our run rate,” Bauer said.
“We wanted to push the 270 we scored last round to 300-320 so I was supper happy we were able to do it.
“I think in planning for Devon, we knew they bowl a lot of spin so we wanted to be positive and have the intent to not just defend and preserve our wicket, we wanted to make sure the short balls and half volleys were hit so we could put pressure on them.”
Bauer also provided an insight into how they approached facing Chris Cleef, who took 7/88 at a frugal economy rate against Tooradin.
“We felt not chasing a total against Cleef helped so he couldn’t dictate as much,” Bauer said.
“We didn’t need to score off his good balls and instead of hitting over the top, we hit to his sweepers and rotated the strike and then we put away the bad balls.”
The Cougars are confident they have learned lessons with the ball from that game as well, when Pakenham had the upper hand for the majority of the chase, save for a brief three-wicket period just before lunch.
It allowed the Lions to time the chase well, winning with seven overs to spare.
“We leaked a boundary ball too regularly against Pakenham and it was either the first or last ball of our over where we let them get ahead of the run rate and get away,” Bauer said.
“My focus for the bowlers is being more consistent in our off stump and fourth stump lines and not letting the pressure slip by bowling a full toss with the last ball of the over.
“We just need to make sure we’re disciplined and set the right fields to suit that.”
The match presents as a game that will have enormous ramifications in the seasons of both clubs.
If the Panther win, they will keep pace with or jump in to the top four and leave the Cougars two-and-a-half games off the pace.
But a victory would provide the Cougars with an important kickstart to its season, after being unable to register a win during a brutal four round stretch against each of the competition powerhouses.
But they did show that their best could compete with those in the upper rungs, and with matches against the struggling Upper Beaconsfield and Merinda Park to follow, the Cougars could be a surprise packet.
“I think we’re starting to settle on what looks like our most settled side and the experience of Michael and Teddy to learn from the match before and bat with really good intent was impressive,” Bauer said.
“We spoke during the breaks about just batting rather than putting pressure on ourselves and that seemed to work.
“We’ve all got a good understanding of each other in the top order.
“It showed on Saturday.
“To start where we started and see improvement gives us confidence we are moving forward well.
“We’re building towards where we would like to be competing so that’s exciting for us.”
