By Molly Magennis
With four wins for Footscray so far, first XI coach Allan Wise is pleased with how the team’s season has started.
The team, which is playing in the Victorian Premier Cricket league, is currently sitting comfortably at fourth on the ladder, with only one loss and one draw.
Wise said the boys have started this season much stronger than last.
“We’re quite happy with our start, you’ve got to try and get early wins and some momentum especially when you’re playing week in week out one day cricket,” he said.
“[We’ve] made a few adjustments and reviewed the bat and we’ve been really pleased with the way we’ve approached our cricket.”
“It’s all about W’s and L’s, we’re pretty confident that [if] we do some certain things right, that we will get more wins than losses.”
After missing out on finals last year, the team would love to make it all the way this season. More importantly however, Wise said this year’s focus has been on building a ‘sustainable brand of cricket’ and improving their batting performance.
“I guess the key areas of focus are we revisited our batting and wanted to make sure … our batting partners were complimenting each other and we were batting with intent and aggression against the right type of bowlers in the right conditions,” he said.
“We think we’ve got the talent and the lineup to do that, we’re probably still a little bit one paced with the bat and dug ourselves some holes in a couple of games, so we’ve been able to sort of address that and batted in a really good place and completed each other nicely.”
While the team does have some younger players who haven’t played a lot of first XI cricket, fast bowler Jake Reed has made a welcome return to the team after suffering an ACL.
“He’s a mature, aggressive, established fast bowler so that’s exactly what we needed and he’s been around the club for a couple of years, but hasn’t played much cricket, so he’s been a very welcome addition, almost like a new player,” Wise said.
Wise also said the fact that the playing group is predominantly the same from last year has also been a key factor in the successful start to the 2021-22 season.
“I guess where we do have some benefit is we have had some guys who have played quite a bit of cricket together, so we’re able to have, especially for the batting group, some pretty honest and open discussions … without anyone feeling out of place or out of joint.”
Footscray will return to the pitch after the Christmas break on January 8, when it takes on Richmond at Central Reserve North.
