BERWICK turfone spin king Ash Henry followed up his brilliant 66 last week with seven wickets on Saturday, destroying Doveton’s bats and helping his team to an excellent win.
Set the enormous task of chasing 303 against arguably the league’s best bowling line up, Doveton fought a loosing battle.
The openers offered some stiff resistance, the score ticking along to 22 in the eighteenth over, Will Carr and Jarrod Goodes unable to produce wickettaking deliveries with the new ball.
Dave Hampton bowled five tidy overs (07), but never really troubled the batsmen and it took the introduction of Ash Henry into the attack to capture the first wicket.
That was the start of a nearperfect spell of bowling from the mercurial Henry, who would be in early favouritism for the league medal, adding an incredible sevenwicket haul to another sixwicket return and scores of 36 not out, 66 and 113 with the bat.
Henry was unplayable on a wicket that was offering considerable spin to such a heavy worker of the ball and the Doveton batsmen could not cope with his vicious leg breaks.
He missed a hattrick by one ball when he captured three wickets in four balls, Hampton swallowing a good catch to have Doveton staggering at 5/38.
It fought back, however to add some respectability to the total with some lowerorder grunt.
Goodes claimed his first of the day in his second spell to finish with 1/29 and Ryan Crawford bowled four dependable overs for 0/11.
Henry was the star though, having little difficulty ripping through the tail, his marathon 24.2 overs on the trot returning him 7/39.
The Bears eventually rolled Doveton for 126 in the 62nd over another convincing win to their collection.
TURF TWO
There were few highlights for Berwick with the bat after an ordinary show with the ball the previous week.
Up against former turfone powerhouse, Hallam, the Bears were totally outclassed, sundries the highest score with 27 out of its total off 100.
The first wicket fell on 25 and Paul Gramc and Brendan Lloyd added a further 40 for the second, this pair the only bats to hold their own with 22 and 26 apiece.
Gramc’s wicket started a crumble for the middle order Berwick’s last nine falling for just 35 runs.
To rub salt in the wound the Bears were asked to bowl again, taking away some recompense in the form of five secondinnings Hallam wickets.
A GRADE
Berwick was never troubled in its run chase of 153 with some encouraging signs along the way.
The Bears lost their first wicket on 18 and avoided much further pain, Matt Lloyd and Brad Eagleton adding 33 from the second wicket, before Lloyd was runout on 25 just when he looked in fine form.
Eagleton was joined by captain Brad James and the pair handled the job with aplomb, accumulating a further 67 runs before wicket number three fell with the score on 118.
The Bears lost just one additional wicket before James brought up the winning runs shortly after passing his personal milestone of 50.
He took advantage of some extra game time batting practice, making his way to 71 unconquered with James Wilcock who pounded 28 notout in short time.
B GRADE
With 313 on the board the Bears were heading into their bowling period full of confidence, however had their work cut out, managing just eight wickets in a full day’s play.
Steve Carle couldn’t reproduce his recent brilliant form and Ryan Smart wasn’t in a wickettaking mood, nor was Trevor McGeachin.
Damien Quinlan bowled with great control throughout his 16 overs, netting 4/27 and clasping a neat catch.
Ray Henry was made to earn his wickets, battling for 16 overs also for 3/26 and bitpart bowler Shaun Grant looked the part, claiming his first victim of the season.
Dandenong West was eventually all out for 140 and the Bears took firstinnings points.
C GRADE
Resuming at 8/170 with a lead of 93 runs, Fountain Gate held the power hand in the secondinnings battle.
It was bowled out with 198 on the board and Berwick had the chance to redeem itself after a miserable 77 first time around.
Its efforts were similarly ordinary on the second attempt, capitulating to 8/108 and in danger of conceding outright defeat before a spirited fightback from Simon Craig and Nicholas Shannon got the Bears out of jail.
Earlier on Josh Holden had put together his finest senior innings so far with a tidy knock of 44, but it was the undefeated Shannon and Craig with 28 and 15 respectively, who came just at the right time.
Berwick ended 8/155.
D GRADE
Conceding a 60run firstinnings deficit, the Bears made a game of it putting 123 together and giving them a small target to bowl to.
Neville Stone helped himself to 60 and Kevin Phillips made 26.
However it was too little too late for the Bears, who could only muster three wickets shared between Rodrigo Martinez, Lachlan Stone and also Phillips.
CLUB NOTES
The club will host its second music trivia night this Saturday night at Akoonah Park pavilion.
Anyone interested in attending or able to donate auction items should contact the club.
Also the Cricket Victoria 20/20 clash with Noble Park, to be hosted at the Arch Brown Reserve, has been postponed and will now be held next week with Tuesday 21 November the likely date.
