Premier Cricket: Monash Tigers coach Shannon Young puts onus on batsmen to step up

MONASH Tigers’ batting improvement will have to come from within this summer as the club looks for a fifth consecutive Premier Cricket finals berth.

Monash Tigers captain Daniel Sartori thrashes one through the off-side. Picture: Stuart Milligan

MONASH Tigers’ batting improvement will have to come from within this summer as the club looks for a fifth consecutive Premier Cricket finals berth.

Despite a fourth-placed finish, no Monash batsman made a century in the summer of 2017-18.

You have to go back to February 2017 Sam Taylor making an unbeaten 100 against Essendon to find the last time a Tigers batsman reached triple-figures.

And only one Monash batsman passed 80 last summer when captain Daniel Sartori made 95 not out.

Coach Shannon Young said he would be relying on his side’s top seven from last summer to lift their output after a “business as usual” off-season.

“We’re not traditionally too active in what is going on,” Young said.

“We had a look at it. Do we want a top-order player? Yeah, 100 per cent, I think everyone does but my gut feel is it (improvement) will have to come internally.

“We’ve also got some guys now I think in terms of First XI cricket, are starting to reach that right time of 60 to 80 games.

“The challenge will be put to guys like (Adam) Amin and even Sartori, (Marcus) Berryman, (Dom) Matarazzo, (Andrew) Chalkley, the focus won’t shift much from that top seven contributing 350-plus runs.”

Sean Griffin (Melbourne) and Matthew Shimell (Elsternwick) are among the departures, while the Tigers are unsure of the commitment of Chris McEwan.

Young said he would continue to look for a more even contribution from his batsmen as they look for another top-eight berth.

“A lot of people have made a lot of it but at the end of the day we finished fourth (last season) and the other thing is our wicket, while it’s not a diabolical wicket, it’s a tough wicket,” he said.

“Sixty or 70, 80 at Central is probably the equivalent to 120, 130 at some of the other grounds because the thing is you have to keep applying yourself mentally.

“It’ll be a little bit of a focus for our guys to make really good quality decisions for long periods of time and now that we are going to play more two-day cricket, I reckon you’ll probably see guys will get opportunities to bat a little bit longer.”