We’d start from scratch

Bannockburn prepared to scrap points to get out of poor grade

BANNOCKBURN president Martyn Bona says his club would be prepared to wipe its points and start from scratch in GCA3 in a bid to get out of its lowly division.

The Bulls and Teesdale remain stranded in Synthetic 3 after clubs this week voted against a GCA plan to promote them into GCA3 for the start of Round 8 in a fortnight.

Player retention is also a major concern for Bona, with his club smashing teams on a weekly basis.

The hard-wicket club’s president said Bannockburn faced the danger of losing its players if one-sided matches continued.

“Our biggest fear is we’ve been training since August, and we’re rolling sides in 30 overs,” Bona said.

“We’ve got our openers bat- ting at number seven and eight, and we’ve got our number seven and eight batting at one, two or three so everyone can get a hit.

“We’re getting the opposition asking if they can bat first because they don’t want to chase 300-plus runs.

“It’s just not cricket. Cricket should be against sides of even playing ability and having a crack.

“That way, you’re good enough if you’re good enough and if you’re not, you’re not.

“We’ll be rolling sides within day 1 if we played to our strengths in two-day cricket.”

Bona said his club would have been prepared to move to GCA3 with zero points, just so his players could play competitive cricket.

“We would have taken that. We would have played on the moon to get in a better competition,” he said.

“We would have looked at anything to play a better brand of cricket. We would have backed ourselves and our playing group to make the finals.

“The reason you train, the reason you play is to play in that competition that gives you the best challenge.”

Bona hopes there is a backflip before the next round of cricket. Any move to include Bannockburn and Teesdale would have implications on the fixture, club championship points and the ladder.