By ADEM SARICAOGLU
HOPPERS Crossing coach Darrel Brown has declared “now’s the time” for his club to challenge for the Victorian Turf Cricket Association’s top prize this summer.
The Cats’ form deteriorated after the Christmas break last season after a good start to the summer that yielded four wins from six encounters.
But this time around Brown hopes his side will maintain a solid brand of cricket over the entire course of the upcoming summer.
“I think this year is absolutely crucial,” Brown said.
“If we don’t get to finals – at least grand final, for me it will be a disappointment.”
Though Brown admits inconsistency is somewhat inevitable with a young side like his, he believes Hoppers Crossing’s third year in the VTCA Senior Division should be a good one for the Cats.
“We are two years into the top league, so no more excuses,” he declared. “I’m not going to take any excuses – we’ve had the experience to see what the bowling’s like and we’ve seen that you don’t get many bad balls. So we now have to learn to rotate the strike and pick up singles, twos and threes instead of looking for the big shots.”
Longer individual stints in the middle is one area Brown hopes Hoppers Crossing will improve on this summer, but the void left by gun leggie Fawad Ahmed had also remained a significant concern.
Englishman Thomas Brett took 13 wickets in his 10 outings for Cats last summer and was serviceable despite struggling to adapt to Australian conditions.
Brett won’t be returning to Hoppers Crossing this summer, but the club hopes its latest new signing will do the trick, and perhaps even go close to filling that void left behind by Ahmed.
The Cats have swooped on gun 20-year-old Sri Lankan leggie Sanka Ramesh Abeyruwan, who was impressive for Sinhalese as a bowling all-rounder last season.
Brown admits he’s hoping Ramesh’s impact will be similar to the one Ahmed had two seasons back.
“With Fawad it was very rare you’d get bad balls from him,” Brown explained. “He wouldn’t get flustered if he got hit for a couple of fours and he would just keep bowling the line that he normally bowls.
“So I’m hoping that this guy can at least come close to that,” he said.
“It’s an exciting time for the club.”
Brown also revealed he will again don the whites this season, which is due to kick off in October.
