Darley captain-coach Heath Pritchard has poured the pressure onto Wendouree ahead of the second weekend of the Ballarat Cricket Association first grade grand final.
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The Red Caps will take the clear upper hand into days three and four leading by 65 runs with nine wickets in hand.
After securing first innings points, Wendouree is in the box seat and Pritchard made it clear the pressure and expectation was squarely on the Red Caps.
While he would happily take that mantle, the current state of play meant Darley had no choice but to play positive, attacking cricket.
“The game is now Wendouree’s to lose, they’re in the box seat, they’re the one that are in front in the game. So really we’ve got a free hit at it now, that’s the way we’re looking at it,” Pritchard said.
“We lost in the first innings, so now all the pressure is on Wendouree and how they’re going to go about the game over the next two days.
“We’ve got to be pretty proactive in trying to get those wickets in the shortest amount of time possible to maximize our time of batting.
“We’ve just got to try and attack and take nine more wickets, that’s the name of the game for us this weekend, and see if we can keep it to a gettable total.”
The first 30 minutes of play will be huge for both sides, but particularly the Lions – who have little margin for error in their pursuit of quick Wendouree wickets. Pritchard said it is time to “crank” up the intensity.
“We’ve got to crank it up. We’ve got to get early breakthroughs and go from there.
“The longer they bat, the harder it is for us.
"There’s not much else we can do. Wendouree are either going to bat time (or) there’s probably a few different ways they can go about it, we’ve just got to try and get nine Wendouree wickets and make whatever they make.”
Meanwhile, in a week that you could forgive a side for dreaming about what could be, Wendouree captain Cole Roscholler said the focus had been strong through a nervous and exciting week.
He said the group would try and keep the feeling around training as normal as possible ahead of the final two days of the BCA grand final.
“It’s just about trying to play your natural game, as soon as you stray away from that that’s when you’re more likely to fail,” he said.
“The thing that I’ve sensed is that everybody is still really focused and determined to go about Saturday and Sunday and whatever takes place, takes place.
“If we tick all the boxes and do all the right things and go through our processes then the end result will take care of itself.”