By Marcus Uhe
Parkfield’s bizarre start to the season in the Dandenong District Cricket Association’s Turf 2 competition is not yet a cause for panic stations according to its captain-coach.
One of the premiership favourites coming into the summer after a grand final appearance in 2023/24, the Bandits’ beginning to the campaign has done little to suggest they belong in the division’s upper echelon, with one win and three losses from their opening four contests.
On Sunday, they became the first side to lose to St Mary’s, falling 24 runs short of the 191-run target.
Their top three failed to fire for the third time in four matches, as they crawled to 167 at less than four runs per over against a side battling for form.
They were 3/36 when Travis D’Souza joined Shahwali Mosavi at the wicket, with their 47-run partnership the largest in the chase.
Parkfield remained in with a chance at 6/145 but lost Steve Cannon, Hansika Kodikara and Sanjay Kahawatte for the addition of just nine runs, with the final wicket pairing unable to reach the target.
Parkfield is the only Turf 2 side with a batter yet to reach 100 individual runs and has the second-lowest cumulative team runs for the season, while just 29 wickets taken makes them the third-least potent side with the ball.
Despite conceding that his side is performing far from their best, Steve Cannon is maintaining the trust built in his playing group over a long period of time.
The same XI has been selected for each match so far this summer, and while individuals have shown positives at different stages, the next step for the playing group is for the collective to find their groove all at once.
“They’re 11 really good cricketers and I’ve got immense confidence in all of them,” Cannon said of his group after the St Mary’s loss.
“Everyone pops their head up at different times, so they can all play, it’s just about getting everyone to work as one and fire as one, because there’s no doubt that with the names on paper that we have, it’s a really good team.
“We just haven’t quite hit our straps yet, but there’s definitely still a good vibe amongst the group.
“Everyone still really wants to push each other to get better and that’s show we should be.
“Losing to those two sides (HSD and Parkmore) is not the end of the world but we’re certainly not playing our best cricket, no way.”
Asked to diagnose the problems, Cannon attributed a number of factors, from the integration of two players asked to play integral roles, to quality of opponents and surfaces.
The Bandits’ opening two opponents included two sides likely to vie for a grand final spot, with HSD’s contest coming on a lively wicket at Casey Fields, while Parkfield Reserve was at its slow and tricky best on Sunday, hence their run rate of 3.7 in the chase.
Finding consistency will be the key to turning their fortunes around, with the hope that the slower pace of two-day cricket will suit both their batting and bowling groups.
“There’s not just one reason why we’re 1-3, there’s multiple little things that aren’t going our way at the moment, which I still have full faith we’re going to correct,” Cannon said.
“It’s a week-by-week thing; I didn’t think we bowled very well yesterday which then put our batting under pressure, but the week before I give our batting a really big tick.
“We’ve previously been a team where it’s all guys that have played a lot of cricket together and now we’ve brought in two guys that haven’t played a lot of cricket with us, and there are a lot of learnings for those guys to make.
“In terms of the existing players, nothing’s changed.
“We’re still trying to go about it the same way, but week-by-week it’s either coming off or not coming off.
“Our two-day cricket probably stacks up better than our one-day cricket, more so for our batting.
“There will be a couple of little changes here and there but we’re not throwing the baby out with the bathwater that’s for sure.”
For St Mary’s, recruit Rumesh Ranasinghe took 4/40 from his 12 overs and wicketkeeper batter Duveen Arachchige made 76.
