WGCA Premier division review – round 10

By David Nagel
PAKENHAM (8/206) look set for a finals campaign in its first season of West Gippsland Premier Division after it won a pulsating contest against Tooradin (7/203cc) at Toomuc Reserve on Saturday.
With the stakes high for the third and fourth-placed teams, neither side asked for or gave an inch, and it took until mid-way through the final over for the two to be split in a match that had many twists and turns.
Seagulls’ skipper Aaron Avery won the toss and batted, and the drama started in the very first over. Lions’ opener Jason Fisher (4/36 off 6) thought he had the key wicket of Tom Hussey (5) caught behind, but umpire Ted Jordan kept his finger down. A confident run out shout in the second over, also involving Hussey and Jordan was denied in a frenetic start to the match.
Fisher got his man in his second over when a sharp in-swinging yorker cannoned into Hussey’s stumps. Fisher looked dangerous, but he and skipper Mick Torney (0/13 off 2) were expensive early, so a double change was made.
Dom Paynter (2/24 off 8) and Russell Lehman (0/12 off 5) teamed well to stem the flow of runs and their pressure was rewarded with two wickets. Paynter claimed opener Brenton Adams (18) to a diving catch at slips by Ben Maroney and then had Avery (12) caught at point by Ben Miller. Tooradin were 3/73 at drinks, with Callum O’Hare (80) and Brad Sauer (58), the not out batsmen on 18 and 14 respectively.
Pakenham kept things tight after the break, and then brought on the spinners to rush through some overs. It backfired.
With the score on 3/106 off 27 overs, Sauer went ballistic while O’Hare played the anchor. A straight driven four followed by a towering six over mid-wicket brought up Sauer’s half-century, and the Lions were suddenly on the back foot. Sauer holed out to Maroney shortly after, but his five over burst had changed the match: the Seagulls were now 4/152 off 32 overs.
O’Hare then stepped things up, and with the help of a bright cameo from Jay Wilson (12) guided the Seagulls past 200. O’Hare played some brilliant drives late in his innings, and was totally unselfish when he holed out off the last ball of the innings. With 22 runs off its last two overs, the visitors had the momentum once again.
Pakenham sent out Maroney (84) and Sean Gramc (5) to head its’ run chase with skipper Torney giving Gramc a licence to swing. Avery’s (1/43 off 8) clever outswingers saw that licence revoked early, and that brought in Sugeesha Dinushan (8). He survived rather than prospered being caught off an O’Hare (1/37 off 7.3) no-ball along the way.
Speed-machine Lukas Hoogenboom (1/28 off 8) was then brought into the attack and made an immediate impact having Dinushan caught behind in his first over. Jason Williams (5) then battled hard against the express pace of Hoogy, who for the first time this season hit full tilt, before hitting a waist high full toss off Ash Adams (2/38) down fine legs throat.
The match then lifted a cog.
Maroney was playing beautifully, keeping out the good balls, but dealing with the bad but even he was rushed by Hoogenboom’s pace. Avery kept the big quick on knowing Maroney’s wicket would put his team right on top. It was a gripping battle between two of the WGCA’s best.
Keeper Hussey was standing a long way back and had balls consistently thudding into his gloves at shoulder height. Hoogy was quick and Maroney was resolute, quite often there was only a metre or two between the pair as the quickie completed his follow through.
The quality of bowling meant that when Maroney lost strike, he didn’t get it back in a hurry and he lost patience, skying a ball to Hussey as the run rate slowed. Pakenham needed 74 runs off 10 overs with five wickets in hand.
Torney (26) and Miller (10) made valuable runs, but when they left and Scott Webster (1) was run-out with the score on 8/164, the Lions looked gone. Paynter (29 not out) and Fisher (15 not out) had five overs to make 40 runs and suddenly made batting look easy.
With eight runs required off the last over, Paynter cracked a cover drive to the boundary and then clipped another over mid-wicket to get the Lions home with three balls in hand.