PRIEST A HIT WITH BAT, BALL
JAN Juc will go into this weekend’s BPCA A1 grand final off the back of its best win of the season.
Iva Priest was outstanding with bat and ball, taking 1-10 from his eight overs and smashing an unbeaten 45 off 28 balls as the visiting Sharks upstaged favourite Barrabool in a dominant display.
“I’ve seen a few performances in my time at the Sharks, but the semifinal performance of Iva Priest was one of the best I’ve seen,” Jan Juc coach Jordan Graham said.
“He’s a matchwinner and even the way he bowled 1-10 off his eight overs just shows how good he really is.”
The Sharks were circling from the start. Barrabool had won the toss and elected to bat first on its home deck but struggled with Graham (2-17) and Josh Norman (1-17) putting the clamps on early.
And the Bulls never really found any momentum, skittled for only 102 in 39 overs with a strike rate of little better than two runs an over as the Sharks shared the wickets around.
“Bowling tight lines and restricting runs is sort of the blueprint as to how we want to play,” Graham said.
“We just try to be very disciplined with the ball and in the field and try to make them pay on their mistakes.
“Barrabool played into our hands and didn’t want to take many risks, which definitely suited our bowlers in the end.”
There were no issues for Jan Juc in chasing down the total, sealing its grand final berth in the 28th over.
“We wanted to be aggressive but also knew we had a job to do, so I said to the boys that we will never get a better look at a grand final than chasing down just over 100 runs,” Graham said.
After having the opportunity to play in the grand final last year stripped away due to COVID, the Sharks will be hoping to claim a famous underdog victory against the undefeated Anglesea this year.
“We are pretty up and about but we have made sure that we aren’t getting over the top and that we will have a good crack at Anglesea,” Graham said.
“You can’t shy away from the fact that they are a good side and have touched us up twice this year, but we think we have got momentum at the right time of the year and they only need one bad day.
“It’s a good feeling and we didn’t get the chance to play in it last year and (I’m) just really proud of the boys at the moment.”