Young Warriors Batting Frailties Exposed as Knights Bowlers Dominate in Eglinton

A disappointed North West Warriors Coach Bobby Rao says his side missed the injured Johnny Thompson when trying to dismiss the Northern Knights for the second time at a bowler friendly Eglinton.

He says his young players inexperience in the format was exposed, and hopes they will learn from the experience.

Barry Chambers: Bobby a good fight back, but in the end just not enough runs?

Bobby Rao (North West Warriors Coach): Not enough runs and even that over from Stuart, you know, but we should have batted better in the first innings. If we had have got to two hundred even.

But the tail enders like Ricky-Lee Dougherty batted very well and pulled us back. But it's a learning curve again. The injury to Johnny Thompson didn't help us - we missed a quickie on this wicket. It was bad luck, but what can you do.

But again we gave them a fight. It was anyone's game this morning when it started. But they had a some experienced batsmen out there in Waller and James Shannon who played well.

Barry Chambers: What do you put the batting frailty down to? No NW batsman has really performed at all in the series so far?

Bobby Rao: I mean the transformation from Club Cricket to three day, the staying power, that really is confusing them I think. I know we've been talking and trying to do work on that, one to one.

But I think hopefully they will get it now, this game was very vital because we played at home and we had a lot of time to talk about it, hopefully they will all take the lessons on board. Most of them are young, except `Ifti' who is experienced and `Kami', who played his part in the first innings.

Barry Chambers: Do you think it's a mental issue rather than a technical one?

Bobby Rao: Definitely, yeah it's a mental pressure coming from fifty over to leaving four balls, and they think they have to, for the fifth ball, they have to go, the one outside the off stump, that patience, that concentration, that's very important. But it will come by playing. Most of these lads now have played a three day game, you know, you're talking about one hundred and four overs, that's over three hundred overs in three days. And they need to get used that that format.