By Keith Thompson
AFTER much-needed rain during the past week, Saturday brought great cricket weather. Yes, fine and sunny, and this led to some wonderful matches being played.
In the Strachan Shield, there were outrights for the taking and Seville declared their first innings closed at 8/193, Tim Dwyer 53 and Richard Dicello 37, a lead of 87 over Coldstream’s 106 first innings score.
In their second innings Coldstream were dismissed for just 93 with the wiley spinner Craig Atkins taking 5/9. Seville had two overs to get the 7 runs required for outright victory, which they did for the loss of one wicket.
Warburton-Millgrove declared their first innings closed at 9/150 (Liam Barnard 46, Luke Darwell 30) as Wandin’s Gary Frankovic had outstanding figures of 8/27.
Wandin who were dismissed last week in their first innings for just 50 runs did not fare much better in their second turn at the crease this week being dismissed for the score of 87.
M. Walker, who took 5/26 last weekend, was hard to handle again with a fine spell of bowling which saw him take 6/37 in Wandin’s second innings.
Mt Evelyn 133 and 7/160 (Brad Jones 60, Andrew Giblin 33, F. Spackman 4/56, R. Williams 4/31) defeated Yarra Panthers 89.
Woori Yallock, chasing Yarra Junction’s 241, reached the respectable score of 8/260 at stumps led by Andrew Sharp with 81 Michael Dwyer 69, Julian Smith 31, while for Yarra Junction James Rogers bowled well to take 4/70.
In the final match of the round, Healesville who have been struggling all season to date, notched up a fine win against Silvan at Healesville. Healesville 217 (Darren Edwards 80, Sean Lovell 4/45, Stuart Reynolds 3/42) defeated Silvan 189 (Stuart Reynolds 44, Glen Newbury 5/55, Darren Edwards 4/38).
In the RA Finger Trophy grade, Gruyere Districts with 271 on the board from last week needed to bowl well against arch-rivals Hoddles Creek. The Hoddles Creek side worked hard at attacking the total ahead of them but fell some 28 runs short when they were dismissed for 243 (J. Derix 76) while A. Vassallo was the best of the Gruyere bowlers with 3/31.
Yarra Glen, who had 247 against its name from last week’s effort with the bat, needed to hold Launching Place United to fewer than that to gain the points but the Launching Place United batsmen had other ideas and ended the day with 259, a win by just 12 runs (H. Wadsworth 53, Cameron Hoare 54, T. Wheeler 44).
The leading Yarra Glen bowler was J. Orren with 3/47.
Kinglake 7/109 declared and 2/79 (J. Morgan 46*) defeated Marysville 99 and 87 (A. Clarke 29). Jamie Morgan 7/29 and 3/15 had a great match with the ball while David McMahon 4/40, David Reid 3/21 both helped with the win in the second innings bowling spells.
On Sunday, 26 November, at the Yarra Junction Cricket Ground the YVCA senior representative side plays host to the West Gippsland Cricket Association in a match as part of the VCCL South East Country Region competition.
Play commences at 10.30am and is a 50 overs per side match.