Hamish Siegert's Bathurst second XI must beat Orange to make Western Zone Cup final

The 18-year-old is the player tasked with captaining the Bathurst second XI this season in the new Western Zone Cup competition.

It's a trophy Siegert would love to lay his hands on, but in order to do that Bathurst must first beat Orange this Sunday.

If his side can do that, produce an Orange crush, then they'll be a chance of making the decider.

"We want to win the first one, everyone remembers the first one," Siegert said.

"Within Bathurst cricket we've built a great culture over the last few years and hopefully we can continue that.

"We all get along great, bunch of of brothers, that's what we like to call ourselves. We play as brothers and win as brothers."

They are words spoken like someone with plenty of days captaining a cricket side on their resume.

And while Siegert is new to the Bathurst second XI job, he has had experience as skipper before.

He's done it for ORC this season - his first time in charge being when the Tigers dominated against City Colts in Bathurst Orange Inter District Cricket - and before that Siegert captained in his junior years.

"It's pretty surreal, obviously I was given the nod and I was happy to take it with both hands and the boys have been really good to me too, happy to help me out when I needed a bit of a hand," he said.

"I'd done a little bit filling in when Dave Sellers, our captain back at club level with ORC, has been away and a bit in juniors.

"I'd captained Bathurst in juniors, in rep cricket, but doing this now is pretty good.

"I'm very lucky to have Yousuf Qureshi [vice captain] besides me, he's good to talk to between overs."

Bathurst's first cup match was against Dubbo in late November.

Siegert's men were at 6-137 chasing 2-220 for victory when rain ended play in the 38^th over. Dubbo was declare the victor via the Duckworth-Lewis system.

Dubbo then lost to Orange by four wickets, meaning Bathurst must win over Orange on Sunday at Riawena Oval and do so by a good margin to get into the top two.

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"Unfortunately we weren't able to win the first game against Dubbo, but that's how it is, we just got rained off in the end," Siegert said.

"Every game you want to win, but we're a bit annoyed we didn't get the win against Dubbo the last game we played. So we'll be coming this weekend ready for anything.

"Getting another shot at Dubbo would be the ideal scenario, getting one up on them in the final would be ideal so fingers crossed, but we've got to play this game first and put a good performance on the board."

The side Siegert will skipper this Sunday includes three of his ORC club-mates in Hugh Parsons, Ben Cant, Justin Stephenson.

They've been in good touch in BOIDC, but are not the only assets in the side.

Flynn Taylor was this week part of Western Zone's victorious Country Colts side, his efforts including taking 3-16 off 9.1 overs against Riverina.

City Colts duo opener Pat Hill and seamer David Rogerson come into the side and their experience will be an asset.

But as Siegert has learned from the example of Bathurst's first XI, success relies on every member of the team doing a job.

"It's very nice to have a lot of in form players, there's a lot of depth in our squad. There are a lot of options, but they're all good headaches to have," he said.

"We've got quite a few boys in our team that I believe could very easily slot into that first XI, but that's what the second XI is for. You've got to put some performances forward and put your name forward.

"The Bathurst first XI have set the attitude straight, we just play our own cricket, our own game. We put our best foot forward and we can beat anyone on the day.

"Bathurst cricket I feel is in a really good position now, to have that sort of depth in our second 11, it says a lot about the strength of the cricket out here."

The match to decide who will advance to the cup grand final will commence at 10am Sunday at Riawena Oval.

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