West Pilbara Cricket Association target title in Perth for Country Week

After taking out the North West Cup in October, the West Pilbara Cricket Association now has its sights firmly set on next year’s Country Week. Two teams — competing in B and D-grades — will head down to Perth to represent West Pilbara in the competition running from January 16 to 21. WPCA captain Michael Bunting said there would be rigorous training involved in the lead-up to it. “The difference in Perth is that we’ll play on turf, which we don’t get to do up here and the format is much longer so we have to get the players to be patient a little more with their batting and bowling much longer spells,” he said. “We have the five games in six days which makes it a big week.” Bunting said he had high hopes for Country Week. “I think we let ourselves down last year when we went down and we didn’t make the final four when we had a team that was good enough,” he said. “So on the Thursday we’re playing in the semifinals for a spot in the grand final and then really, we’d love to be playing in the finals on the Friday.” WPCA retained the North West Cup after dismantling Broome, Port Hedland and Newman over three rounds on the weekend of October 30. WPCA’s Lachlan Seabrook was named player of the tournament.