Lake Street Oval provided brilliant conditions for the top of the table clash between the batting power of Taree West and all-round talent of the Great Lakes team.
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Lakes won the toss and elected to bat with openers Scott Orchard and Nathan Ballard getting off to a shaky start before Ballard was bowled for 0.
Allan May came in next and steadied the innings and together with Orchard they managed two runs per over.
The pair saw off the Taree opening bowlers and then disaster stuck with Orchard (33) and May (33) both getting out with the score on 59 runs.
Nick Montague and young James McBride strode out to the middle full of confidence.
Montague unfortunately couldn’t produce a back to back innings and was last seen dragging his bat behind himself after getting a duck.
Matt Watters was next in and didn’t disappoint.
Both McBride and Watters pushed the ball around into the gaps taking easy singles and twos pressuring the Taree fielders into errors.
McBride was particularly good with his speed between the wickets was a something to behold, his speed, agility and athleticism was simply “McBrilliance”.
Watters was 31 not out and McBride was not out 43 in the most important innings of the match.
The Lakes innings closed at 5/153 off 40 overs.
The feeling in the Lakes camp was upbeat as they took the field.
Taree opened with their big hitting pair of Smitzer and Fuller.
Seb Strong opened the bowling for Lakes and struck early with a wicket on the last ball of his first over having Taree at 1/ 4.
Strong continued to bowl eight straight overs and finished with 2/29 in his best bowling display of the season.
Not to be out done fellow opening bowler Nathan Ballard was his miserly best bowling with pace and accuracy for eight straight overs to with finish 1/10.
In keeping the left hander theme going captain Julius Schilpzand produces a master stroke giving the ball to 15-year-old Jack Howard.
Howard’s unusual bowling action had the batsman in all sorts of trouble before he took the prized wicket of Smitzer crashing through his defence and sending his stumps cartwheeling across the ground.
Next over Howard gave a beautiful caught behind to wicketkeeper Scott Orchard.
Howard finished with 2/20 off four overs.
The ole maestro Allan May took the ball and bowled eight tidy overs to finish with 0/24.
May’s bowling support to Howard made the difference breaking through the Taree middle order.
Next to bowl was the deceptive Lleyton Blissett who also was partnered with May.
Blissett bowled good line and length to finish with 2/19 off six overs.
Keen to redeem himself Nick Montague and James McBride took the final overs with Montague bowling his magnificent dart balls to finish with 1/7 off three.
After showing us what potential he had with the bat the Taree rear guard was no match for McBride.
With eight balls of sheer scintillating pace and bounce the batsman were lucky to lift their bat before McBride took an LBW, and then sent the stumps sailing through the air of another to be 2/3.
Taree ended up all out for 113 runs.
Man of the match was James McBride.
Next week’s game is v Old Bar at Old Bar Reserve.