Dighton Impressed with Barras

Former Australian cricketer, Michael Dighton, has been supporting the Kumul Petroleum Barramundis as a specialist coach through funding from the PacificAus Sports Initiative. Dighton arrived last week and will be predominately working with the Barras batting group throughout the ICC CWCL2 tournament.

With the Kumul Petroleum Barramundis already registering one win and one draw against the USA, Dighton has been impressed by their efforts so far. “ The Barras have applied themselves well under tough batting conditions, the wicket is not conducive to high scores, but they have ground out winning totals against a good USA bowling attack.

We saw an excellent innings from Sese Bau on Sunday, a very positive opening stand on Tuesday by Hiri & Siaka and then our Captain Assad Vala played impressively to control the innings, our experienced players are leading the way. I have been working one on one with the top order, talking about their own game and their role in the team. There is plenty of improvement in this group, the talent is obvious, we are excited by the challenge of facing the Namibian attack in the next two games”.

Dighton has been involved with Cricket PNG in the past working with Garamuts over 10 years ago. With the PacificAus Sports program offering him the opportunity to work with them again he jumped at the chance. “ I’m only a small part of the overall PacificAus sports initiative, to have the chance to be involved and help the further development of the current and future Barramundis is a huge honour. This program will be of enormous benefit to Cricket PNG, the national teams and High-Performance programs.

I’m also fortunate that it coincides with the National Independence celebrations, Port Moresby is full of colour and excitement. I’m looking forward to seeing more of the area over the next week before we take on Namibia, we will need to be at our best but with the home crowd support I’m confident we will get the wins.

The Kumul Petroleum Barramundis will be back in action at Amini Park against Namibia with a double header on Tuesday the 20th and Wednesday the 21st, The matches start at 10am and entry is free.