Brothers still hope for a showdown

A LOSS to Brothers against rival Frenchville at Kalka Shades on Saturday has not disheartened captain Murray Harch – quite the opposite.

A LOSS to Brothers against rival Frenchville at Kalka Shades on Saturday has not disheartened captain Murray Harch - quite the opposite. He is convinced should it come to a showdown at season's end he has the players to upset the champions.

"I think we have the team to win it this year," he said.

The PFD Cup clash between the two top teams was expected to be tight and that was how it turned out with batsmen struggling to go on with their innings after making a start.

Harch said there were no demons in the pitch but if the bowlers kept to line and length then they were difficult to get away for runs.

Frenchville certainly made life difficult for the Brothers top-order batsmen, after Brothers won the toss and elected to bat, and after 20 overs there were just 42 runs on the board.

Ken Litschner is normally one batsman who refuses to be shackled but opening the innings he pushed and prodded his way to a score of just five.

Harch said in a tight situation it is up to the men at the crease to try and put the bowlers off by taking different positions on the crease and making them alter length and line.

Harch went to the wicket to show his players how it was done.

"I went in during the 22nd over," he said.

With Brothers on 49, Harch strode to the crease for his knock and while his team was far from out of the woods when he departed at 6-116 they at least had a springboard to try and gain a competitive total.

In the end Brothers was dismissed in the final over for 159 runs.

"We fell 20 runs short of where we wanted to be," he said.

Harch scored a game-high 43 runs, with five fours and two sixes in his knock.

Tim Reid with a quickly compiled 20 and Luke Reid 14 helped Brothers to get to their total.

Bowling for Frenchville Brock Siegert took three wickets late in the innings to finish with 4-23 in his eight overs while David Goltz also went well to finish with 3-36.

Frenchville chased the Brothers total hard and obviously had a bonus point in mind, scoring over 90 runs in the first 20 overs.

In the end Frenchville reached the target with three wickets and 10 balls to spare.

Originally published as Brothers still hope for a showdown