By Tara Murray
It was a successful T20 campaign for St Anthonys in the Cricket Victoria Women’s Community Cricket north-west B competition.
While the Saints didn’t make finals, for them it was about building on the progress they made in their first season.
By results alone, it was clear the Saints had improved, winning four matches, compared to a total of two matches in the T20 and one-day competition last season.
Saints coach Warren Haffenden said a year under their belts had helped.
He said they had similar player numbers to last season as they had lost a few players, but also picked up a few.
“It was good practice to see how they liked it,” he said. “Last year was a hard slog being new and having not played before.
“They’ve done really well.
“They scored more runs and have taken more wickets than they did last season. The figures show who has stepped up, which is pretty much just about everyone.”
Haffenden said as well as more wins on the board, they were more competitive for longer.
He said they were not that far off the top group of sides.
Photo Gallery: EMP/Willy Congs vs St Anthonys
“Everyone was up, number-wise,” he said.
“We were a bit more sound in batting out the 20 overs and a couple of times the openers batted through.”
Haffenden said the most pleasing development was how much the girls wanted to work on their games.
He said they were spending more time in the nets than a lot of the male cricketers at the club.
“They train two nights a week,” he said. “There’s three or four junior girls who train with both the seniors and juniors.
“Others are down at the nets every Saturday when the guys are playing.
“They are getting reward for effort.”
The Saints got their one-day campaign underway on Sunday against EMP/Willy Congs.
Haffenden said he liked how all the T20 games were scheduled at the start followed by one-day competition.
He said before the match he was interested in how they would go in the longer format and they had set small personal goals.
St Anthonys started the one-day competition with a loss.
Willy Congs made 9-164 from their overs, and Amanda Quirk and Victoria Lavanda took two wickets each for the Saints.
The Saints fell short, finishing 5-130.
This weekend they face Coburg 2.
Melton Centrals, which is through to the B competition T20 final, started their one-day season with a win. The Centrals were meant to play at Gisborne, but Gisborne forfeited.
St Anthonys is still after female players interested in joining their women’s and junior girls teams.
MORE CVWCCC NEWS
www.starweekly.com.au/sports/craigieburn-falls-short/
