BY day, Jackson Coote is a groundsman at Kinross Wolaroi School and Sam Nicholls is a student.
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By tonight, they will be rivals as Orange City takes on Kinross in their first Royal Hotel Cup match of the 2013-14 season.
The two have something else in common - they open the bowling for their respective teams.
Orange City may be favourites going into tonight’s match as the defending champions, but Coote knows Kinross are dangerous in the shorter forms of the game.
“They’re a young team and they’ll be very energetic. They’ve got a good record in the shorter games,” Coote said of Kinross.
Nicholls said the Kinross players were looking forward to playing under lights.
“Most of the team haven’t played a night game at Wade Park before, so that’s something different,” he said.
At 16, Nicholls is one of the most experienced players in the Kinross side.
Stu and Peter Crisp have been added to the Kinross side in place of opening batsmen Charles Litchfield and Toby Polkinghorne, who will be competing at the NSW Country under 17s championship.
Kinross coach Andrew Litchfield said his side’s enthusiasm in the field made them competitive.
“Plus we’ve always had a couple of guys who can hit the ball well. We need a bit of luck to go our way,” Litchfield said.
Former Orange City first grade captain Dave Boundy will make his debut in Orange’s Twenty20 competition.
The paceman hasn’t earned the call-up from second grade for his bowling.
Boundy has been opening the batting in second grade and last week scored 53 against Waratahs at Jack Brabham.
“We’ll take a reasonably different side into the Twenty20 games to what we play on Saturdays,” Orange City captain Matt Findlay explained.
“Dave Boundy will come in for the Twenty20 games. He didn’t play [Royal Hotel Cup] last year. I think he deserves a chance because he’s been scoring runs.”
Findlay expects the competition’s new format of nine teams divided into three pools to put pressure on sides from the first ball.
“With the different format and only three teams in each pool, you need to basically win every game you play,” Findlay said.
“It adds a little bit of pressure, especially with an unpredictable side like Kinross.”
Tonight’s game at Wade Park will start at 6.30pm.
An under 12s game between Orange City and Kinross will be played at 4pm.
