A PLACE in the Royal Hotel Cup semi-finals is on the line for Orange City on Wednesday night.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
In the final regular season match of the 2014-15 competition, Orange City will clash with Blayney at Wade Park to determine whether the Warriors can book a place in the semi-finals.
The pressure might be on, but Orange City captain Matt Findlay isn’t concerned.
“We’re pretty confident in our Twenty20 cricket,” he said.
And they have every reason to be with the record they have over the last three seasons.
City took out the 2012-13 Royal Hotel Cup with only one loss along the way.
Last season, the only loss they suffered was in the grand final to Cavaliers.
This season, they recorded a round-three loss to Lithgow but have beaten CYMS and Wanderers.
No wonder Findlay has no plans to change his team’s approach.
“We’ve only lost three games over the last three seasons,” the captain said.
“We won’t change anything. Blayney is a good side, but we’re confident we can win.”
That means you can expect Orange City to come out firing against Blayney on Wednesday night.
“It’s all-out aggression for us and hopefully it comes off,” Findlay said.
“We bat very deep. Jackson Coote will probably bat nine or 10. Our bowling has always been our strength in any form of the game.”
Findlay stressed he wasn’t underestimating Blayney.
“Blayney have got guys like Jameel Qureshi and Imran Qureshi who can just explode in this form of the game, but we can’t focus on just one or two players. We just have to focus on ourselves,” he said.
If Orange City win, they will move into a share of top spot in pool B with CYMS on 16 points and net run rate will decide who takes poll position.
Should Blayney win, Orange City would finish tied with Lithgow in second place and the net run rate would, again, come into play.
Out of the top three teams in the pool at the moment, CYMS have the best net run rate on 2.433, followed by Orange City (1.006) and Lithgow (-0.566).
“We can probably lose and still go through but it would depend on how close the game is,” Findlay said.
Wednesday night's match at Wade Park starts at 6.30pm.