From left: Endeavour Hills Cricket Club players Jason Williams, Asha Ganser, Karl Turner, Ryan Pearson, Lenard van der Werff, Dominic Paynter, Shaun Tongue, Martin Gaitely, Anthony Davies, captain-coach Ben Maroney, Matthew Allen and Jeff Hall are hoping for a big season at Sydney Pargeter Reserve.By Marc McGowan
NOTHING short of the finals will be good enough for Endeavour Hills Cricket Club when it takes to the field for round one of the Victorian Sub-District East/West Group competition this weekend.
The club missed the finals last season with a record of five wins, six losses and a draw, but has added outstanding 19-year-old Durham opening batsman Karl Turner, from England, to an already promising line-up.
All-rounder Jason Brown is the only significant departure after switching to Mazenod.
The left-handed Turner arrives with huge raps and has already impressed Endeavour Hills captain-coach Ben Maroney with his obvious talent.
He will join last year’s leading run-scorer Ryan Pearson at the top of the order to create a formidable opening partnership.
Former club champion Shaun Tongue, who has looked in good touch in the pre-season, will bat at number three, while Maroney will slot into the middle order.
Endeavour Hills is also hoping for wicketkeeper Jason Williams, who made a century last season, to be more consistent with the bat.
The bowling load will be shared more this season, with recruits Ryan Kitchen and Paul Gramc expected to provide great support to Simon Black and Matthew Hutchinson.
Left-arm spinner Shane Peake will provide the variety to the quick men.
Black will miss the opener because he is on a football trip and could yet leave to play for Victorian Premier Cricket team Casey-South Melbourne.
Maroney can only envisage improvement from his youthful squad in 2007-08.
“Overall, we’re a pretty young side and we’re looking forward to having another year of experience under our belt from last year and we’ll be hoping to finish in the top four,” he said.
“We were middle of the range last year, but we never got flogged and were always thereabouts.
“We lost three or four games by under 10 runs.”
The off-season inclusions have further bolstered Maroney’s confidence and he hopes the new players’ maturity will be the difference in the tight matches.
“Picking up those extra bowlers and a batsman was quite good because there just wasn’t enough experience in the side and we couldn’t win those close games,” he said.
“Experience is the key and this year we’ll be looking to win the close ones.
“We were pretty happy with last year, but we just couldn’t win those close ones and we’ve put that down to experience.”
Despite the lack of knowledge about its opposition due to sub district cricket’s annual reshuffle, Maroney still has big expectations.
“It is a bit of an unknown, but we definitely should finish top four this year and I’d be disappointed if we didn’t,” he said.
“We’ve been going for three months now, we’ve had good numbers on the track … and we’re pretty confident.”
Endeavour Hills takes on Box Hill at Sydney Pargeter Reserve on Saturday from 12.30pm.
