READ MORE - BDCA ROUND 1 WRAP

FOR all the talk in the pre-season about Kangaroo Flat's much-vaunted bowling line-up, ultimately, it was the Roos' batting depth that proved decisive in getting their Bendigo District Cricket Association season off to a winning start.

The knock on the Roos in recent years has been their capacity to get the job done with the bat to support their bowlers.

And it was looking like that same question was set to be asked again last Saturday when they crashed from 2-88 to 7-101 chasing Sandhurst's 7-170 at Dower Park.

However, while momentum was well and truly against them, last Saturday was the first showing this season of just how deep the Roos bat as they dug their way out of trouble to win by two wickets.

The depth in the Roos' batting line-up was encapsulated when 14 runs still short of victory after the eighth wicket fell, the No.10 batsman who strode to the wicket was Adam Burns - a player with seven first XI centuries to his name and one of only six players in the history of the competition with both 500 wickets and 5000 runs.

"With the players we've picked up this year, I expect that our strength will be our batting depth," Kangaroo Flat coach Wayne Stubbings said on Thursday.

"When you've got the situation of Brent Hamblin coming in at No.8, Dylan Klemm at No.9 and Adam Burns at No.10, I'd be expecting us to close out games well if we're going to be contenders this season.

"Losing 5-13 put us under quite a bit of pressure last week, but at no stage either did the runs required get above the balls remaining.

"We always felt that if we could keep the run-rate under six an over we'd be able to run that score down.

"And with our last four or five batsmen, one of their strengths is their running between wickets, which also helped to tick the score over and that's going to be important in pressure situations, particularly when you're struggling to hit boundaries."

The Roos answered the Dragons' 7-170 with 8-172, winning with seven balls to spare having had to earlier negotiate a tough nine-over spell from star Sandhurst leg-spinner Liam Bowe.

Playing with the Dragons until the Premier Cricket season begins on November 28, Bowe finished with 4-25 - the BDCA's best bowling figures on day one.

There's plenty of expectation on the Roos this season given the return of top-order batsman Jake Klemm from Bendigo United, luring gun left-arm bowler Lewis Stabler from Huntly-North Epsom, plus Nathan Newlan is playing again, while they will also have Premier Cricket player Ryan O'Keefe early in the season.

After a solid start last weekend, the challenge now for the Roos is to back it up in round two against Golden Square at Wade Street.

The Bulldogs were comprehensively outplayed by Eaglehawk in round one, going down by 69 runs.

"The first message I delivered to the boys last Saturday was let's not get ahead of ourselves. That was a game we potentially would have lost over the past few years given the position we were in, but it's only round one and we've got to keep working on the plans and processes that we have put in place with the way we go about our cricket," Stubbings said.

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