THE possibility of rain on Sunday will influence Wingham captain Brad Staff if he wins the toss tomorrow in the Manning first grade cricket preliminary final against United at Chatham Park.
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"There's a fair bit of rain forecast for Sunday,'' Staff said.
"So I might send them in if I win the toss. Hopefully we'll be able to get them out and then give ourselves enough time to get the runs.''
Staff would prefer to bat first, even though his side has been inconsistent in this department all season.
"We're not the best at chasing scores,'' he admits.
Wingham has to win the game to have any chance of playing Old Bar in the grand final as United finished in front of them on the competition ladder.
Wicket keeper-batsman Dan Barber returns for this game from injury, however, Wayne Smoothy will miss play tomorrow.
Staff was due to finalise his side last night.
Staff goes into the game on the back of three consecutive ducks.
"So I'm due for some runs,'' he said.
"Our problem is that we lose wickets in quick sequence. We go from 1/50 to 4/70. It's a matter of better shot selection and having a bit of patience.
"But we've only made five half centuries all season and that's just not good enough.''
Staff claims his side has nothing to fear from United, but quickly adds he has respect for their batting lineup which he says in the best in the competition. However, he is confident Wingham has the strike power to test the United batsman while Staff and Matt Essery will provide the spin option.
Staff expects a flat wicket for the contest.
"I wouldn't think they'd under-prepare it,'' he said.
Meanwhile United will welcome captain Ricky Campbell back for this weekend's Manning first grade cricket semi-final.
Campbell was on holidays and missed United's win over tomorrow's opponents in the last round.
However, United will now be at full strength for the encounter and were due to whittle 13 players down to a starting XI at last night's training session.
Campbell will bat at four this weekend, his regular position, with Josh Ferris and Laurie Weeks to open up following by Murray McCartney.
Campbell is confident United's batting will carry the day. Because of rain and then a holiday Campbell hasn't played a lot of cricket recently, but he doesn't think this will be a problem.
"Hopefully we'll get to bat first and get a total of 200 plus on the board,'' he said.
"That's always going to be hard to chase down.''
He agreed that United has had Wingham's measure on most occasions this year, but he remains wary of the Upper Manning XI.
"Finals are a different ball game,'' he said.
"Last week Wingham were probably on top when they were around 4/115, but they lost five or six wickets for 40.''
Campbell doesn't think the wicket will contain too many terrors.
"We were making scores of 240 and 250 in the 40 over matches earlier in the season,'' he said.
"I don't think the wicket will be an issue in the game.''
United will be favoured if weather intervenes as they finished higher on the ladder. However, Campbell hopes this won't be the case.
Meanwhile Campbell also backs his bowlers to do the job this weekend.
"We've got the bowlers to get the 10 wickets we need,'' he said.
"We have Tom Burley, Jackson Witts and Brock Stewart while Dean Mills gives us another option.
Winner of the match will meet minor premiers Old Bar in the grand final.