Great Lakes Cricket Club’s C Grade faced the odds and won when they took on competition front runners Hallidays Point with seven key players out on the weekend.
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Supported by junior players the team trekked out to Bob Collier Oval to try and do the seemingly impossible and beat Hallidays Point.
Things didn’t start well with Hallidays winning the toss and sending Lakes out to field first in the extreme 39 degree soul sapping heat. But the old heads in Great Lakes’ May, Watters, Montague, Ballard and Captain Schilpzand had other ideas and proved to be the key ingredient in a memorable Lakes victory.
A brilliant piece of fielding saw Nathan Ballard run out opener Max Elliott for 5. Opening bowlers Matt Waters and Lleyton Blissett restricted to only 27 runs of the first eight overs.
Seasoned campaigner Nick Montague took the first change ball and showed the youngsters how it’s done with two brilliant caught and bowled efforts to finish with figures of 2/25 off eight overs. Young gun Craig Lewis bowled six overs of genuine spin that trouble all the Hallidays batters and finished with 1/25. A number of times Lewis was simply too good for the batsman otherwise he could have taken a few more wickets. In a showing of sheer brilliance Capt Julius Schilpzand decided it was time to unleash his own bowling skills on the opposition. Taking twice as long as Merv Hughes to stretch and warm up, Julius approached his first over with gusto off his five step run up, and took the prize wicket of Gabe Savage on his sixth ball. In his third over Julius got his second wicket before the new batters started to take to his bowling. Against the calls to replace himself, Julius persisted and broke through for his third wicket and then his fourth wicket – that of the Hallidays Capt Brad Grant. At the end of eight gruelling overs Julius had bowled an amazing 4/19. Allan May with all his decades of bowling experience tied down the remaining batters to be 1/15 off eight overs. At the end of 40 overs Hallidays closed at 9/119.
Lakes sent out their experienced top order batsman Nathan Ballard and Nick Montague to open. Ballard smashed 36 runs, including eight fours. Montague proved his earlier headline grabbing efforts weren’t a once off and also hit 36 runs with six fours. Lakes were looking in a strong position at this stage being 2/95. The Lakes captain kept the oldies coming with Matt Watters and Allan May next in together. May was outstanding, carefully placing singles and twos – a real problem for Hallidays to shut down. Lakes won the match hitting 2/121 off 13.4 overs. Man of the Match was Captain Julius Schilpzand who excelled in all aspects of the game.
Next week Lakes take on Mt George at Taree Rec 3.