I'm tipping them to make a bit of a late surge this season. I don't really expect them to finish any higher than 5th (maybe 4th if they're lucky) but I think they'll start causing a few upsets. For the first time ever in their history, I actually fear them a little bit. I think a lot of their players will take a lot out of the rep season - they really gunned it as the whole across this period Batting Code: [B]Player Team Mts Runs Avg Best[/B] DK Erschoff Vic 2 315 78.75 258 JRE Luffman GB 3 280 70.00 120 J Torres NZ 3 358 59.67 135 BA Storer Vic 2 113 56.50 47 L Popovic NSWA 3 256 42.67 106 Bowling Code: [B]Player Team Mts Wkts Avg Best[/B] DA Eggman Vic 2 16 13.13 8/54 L Popovic NSWA 3 13 19.31 4/29 BOY Blunder GB 3 17 20.47 7/58 HJ Bots NZ 3 15 24.20 6/84 Now I'm sure most teams could come up with a list of players who did well over the rep season, but this was crucially important to the Vipers as they've had two areas letting them down. 1. Pace Attack Leader The Vipers have good bowling depth and some pretty good fast bowlers, but they've lacked a real strike bowler all season. Enter Eggman. In his first BS game of the season he ripped apart the Crusaders and he continued on with this for Victoria. I think he's ready to lead the attack and the bowlers will benefit greatly from it. Blunder himself showed qualities like this as well as he demolished the NSW Second XI batting lineup. 2. Opening Batsman Frankly, Johnson has been terrible. They tried Seeks and he was even worse. Suddenly though they have two real options at the top of the order to partner Boland. The first is to move Luffers to open and slide Torres, New Zealand's Jae Taylor Cup hero, into the middle order.. the second is to open with Lukic who had an awesome series for NSW Academy opening the batting. They may seem like pretty small things but I think this will turn them into a pretty decent cricket team. Old Vipers no more, IMO.
Haha nah, I hope they go shit TBH. I just reckon they're showing signs of coming good. Or rather, coming semi-decent.
Torres deserves a BS shot more than Popovic imo. But if they do let Popovic in at the top of the order, then they need to make sure they don't let him bowl
Well they've got the Stingrays first up, will be a pretty good test to see where they are at and if they can carry the form over. Thing that stands out for me in those stats though are that the rep sides aren't exactly NSW or QLD nor was their opposition. Might be underrating them a bit though.
It's a fair point about Lukic's opposition, but here's the attack Torres scored his ton against: 1 - Josh Whicker (FC average: 28.09; rank: 7) 2 - Boy Blunder (FC average: 32.61; rank: 51) 3 - Alex Farnsworth (FC average: 23.29; rank: 8) 4 - Steve Smith (FC average: 35.24; rank: 29) 5 - Callum Laing (FC average: 28.88; rank: 67) That's better than most BS attacks. Eggman's wickets included Monkeywrench, Olsen, Torres himself and Graham, all cheaply.. not to mention who he knocked over in the BS game.
Yeh I'm not gonna say we are gonna rip it up, but things are starting to come together. More people are making runs, Gee had a decent SoO. Good to finally see our bowling perform! Next season we will have a proper opener coming as well. This'll mean we have some real competition for places in the batting order.
Rank 8?! *posts so he can look at his stats* I agree that Eggman is really coming on nicely. Will be useful, as Blunder is capable of ripping through teams, but also of getting spanked around a bit.
It's been heavily debated in the sub-forum tbh but we NEED someone good to open the batting. It's hard for the team to play well when we lose 1/2 wickets in the first 10 overs every game.
