By Tara Murray
Darley’s love of the T20 format has continued with a second straight win in the Ballarat Cricket Association – this time against Golden Point.
The Lions, last season’s T20 champions, have won both their T20 matches this season.
For Lions captain-coach Michael Alexander, the wins are a good way to build confidence after a tough start to the season.
“It is a start – to get a little bit of success and momentum,” he said.
“It’s nicer than losing. We had a bit of confidence coming on the back of last year. We executed really well.”
He said the switch to T20 had been good for the team.
“In the one-dayers we didn’t have any luck,” he said.
The star on Saturday against Golden Point was import Danza Hyatt, playing his first game for the Lions.
That came after their other import, Hasitha Wickramasinghe, arrived in time for round five, with both players experiencing visa issues.
Alexander said it wasn’t an ideal lead-up for Hyatt, who arrived during the week.
“He had 70 hours in transit … he had to catch four flights,” Alexander said. “To bat through the innings after bowling his four overs and fielding was really good. He’s a class player, a class above, and it showed through.”
Hyatt scored 76 from 56 balls as the Lions made 2-121 off 18.4 in reply to Golden Point’s 8-118. Dayle Locke and Ben Longhurst took two wickets each for the Lions.
Alexander said the bowling group had done a great job earlier in the day, but they had let themselves down with their fielding at times. But he said that in the end it was a pretty easy win.
“A score of 118 is a bit below par on that wicket,” he said. “But in T20, I think anything 100 plus you are in the game.
“We had a great start at 0-60 and once we got to that point we were able to cruise at the end.
“We didn’t accelerate – we just did what we had to do to get the win.”
The win moves the Lions to 2-5. They are eighth on the ladder.
They will face Napoleons-Sebastopol in the final round of the T20 matches this Saturday.
Alexander said finals were not something they were focusing on, given their 0-5 start to the season.
“Finals aren’t off the table – mathematically we’re still a chance,” he said. “The focus is playing better week to week and focusing on how we want to play. We’ve got the last of the T20 matches before the two-day matches and we could potentially set things up between now and Christmas. We’ll focus more on the way we are playing and everything else will take care of itself.”
Other winners on Saturday were, East Ballarat, North Ballarat, Brown Hill and Buninyong.
In second grade, Darley defeated Golden Point and Ballan was too good for Dunnstown.
