LIAM DURKIN
CRICKET
GCL
By LIAM DURKIN
LATROBE Valley will take to the field this Sunday for Round 3 of the Gippsland Cricket League
The local side is slated to play Bairnsdale in Lucknow, who will look to get back on the winners list.
BAIRNSDALE was undone by Warragul in Round 2.
The Wild Dogs, who had the bye in Round 1, sent Bairnsdale home on a long trip back after winning comfortably by seven wickets on Sunday, November 12.
Bowling first on a slow Hallora deck, the home side restricted their opponents to 137.
Warragul had a dream (if very lucky) start, dismissing Rohan Blandford third ball of the game.
Blandford could hardly believe his eyes when a juicy half-tracker from Troy Lehman looped to him, yet with hardly any pace on the ball, all the left hander succeeded in doing was hitting a catch straight to backward point.
From that somewhat comical start, Bairnsdale settled in.
Brodie Anderson and Francois Mostert got through to drinks, and both looked relatively unfazed on a ground that offered good value for shots.
Mostert was going along nicely, before edging one through off Trafalgar pace bowler Sam Sharp.
Sharp bowled 10 straight, and was eventually rewarded with the wicket of Mostert coming off the very last ball of his spell.
That wicket triggered a dramatic collapse, as the visitors went from 1/93 to 5/103.
Warragul spinners Yashan Samarasinghe and Dan Vela did most of the damage, ripping through the middle and lower order.
Samarasinghe knocked over Bairnsdale captain Ryan Halford first ball, leading to a one word outburst from the batsman upon returning to the sheds.
Vela and Samarasinghe had near-identical figures of 3/28 and 3/29 respectively, while fellow slow bowler Harvey Jupp took 2/17.
Warragul had little trouble chasing the required total, passing what they needed in 21 overs.
Samarasinghe completed a likely man-of-the-match performance, making 75 off 64 balls, while skipper Cam McPhan made 40 off 38.
SALE-MAFFRA went on a scoring spree in Round 2.
The Sharks senior men put up a huge total of 7/320 batting first against Leongatha at Scorpion Park.
Having chased leather for 50 overs, the home side was never likely to reel in such a mammoth score, and so it proved, as they were bowled out for 192.
The 320-total was Sale-Maffra’s second best against Leongatha, falling short of the 336 the Sharks scored against them in 2008.
Further records came when Sharks skipper Dylan Bolton took his 100th wicket in representative cricket.
Bolton ended the game with figures of 3/50, backing up the efforts of Ben Jones (3/25) and Anthony Scott (2/24).
Before that, most of the top and middle order got among the runs.
Italian international Stefano Di Bartolomeo scored 111 off 103 balls, sending six of them over the fence.
Fellow import Kev Renecke also featured in the runs, scoring 48 against the new ball.
Locals Charlie Morrison (37), Jones (31) and Adrian Burgiel all helped the cause as well.
Former Gormandale cricketer Burgiel clubbed a 21-ball half century that saw 44 runs come in boundaries alone (six sixes).
Coincidently, Burgiel made 127 the day Sale-Maffra put up their highest ever score against Leongatha.
The home side tried their best to go at the rate required, and scored freely while the field was up.
Leongatha was 0/33 off seven overs, with Ethan Lamers striking the ball nicely.
However, wickets fell against the run of play, and it ended up being only Lamers (62 off 54 balls) and Joel Brann (36 off 38) who made much of an impression.
LATROBE Valley had a bye for the second round.
Nathan Freitag’s men can continue their unbeaten campaign with victory this Sunday, backing up their first round win against Leongatha.
Sale-Maffra host Warragul at Stratford in the other game, while Leongatha has the bye.
