NCC well prepared for Free State clash
THE CHIPS are down as central region neighbours Free State and Northern Cape face off in this weekend’s CSA Provincial Threeday Challenge, starting today, and the CSA Provincial One-day Challenge scheduled for Sunday at the Diamond Oval.
What makes these matches so important for the teams is that in some ways the performance and outcome could go a long way in determining which is the best feeder team to the VKB Knights franchise.
Added to this incentive the local lads know that they will need to pull up their socks and improve on their victory rate both at home but especially on the road so as to pick up on their overall standings on the log.
Northern Cape Cricket (NCC) coach Loots Bosman readily agrees that improvement on the log is certainly achievable within the stroke of a single match. The team is currently in sixth place out of seven teams on the CSA Threeday Challenge log, and fifth out of seven on the One-day table.
Bosman had been proactive after the festive break, making an early start and had taken the trouble of letting the team run off some of the Christmas pudding and other indulgences with a brisk run around the park on the first day back at the office.
Intense sessions
By Tuesday this week the team was hard at work at the nets trying to figure out how to deal with the anticipated Free State bowling attack. They were back for some more intense sessions yesterday ahead of today’s match start.
What will give NCC confidence is the fact that to date the Diamond Oval has been their happy hunting ground. Their record elsewhere is cringeworthy which begged the question of the coach as to why the team’s performance away from home was so below par?
“I think it’s just a matter of conditions. You go to a venue you don’t know what to expect . You assume you will be playing on a flat wicket or that it will be a green wicket.
“So in terms of preparations here at home you find something is very different to what you actually play on when you are away.
“But still as a cricketer you must adapt to all those conditions. It’s part of the game.
“Sometimes it’s also that the other team also wants to do well and that their skill set is sometimes better.”
Bosman cautioned, however, that despite the home advantage the team cannot afford to be too chilled against Free State.