The West Gippsland Wombats got in ahead of the rain last week with a beautiful summers day greeting players for the Over-70 game against Essendon/Barclay ST.
This was the sixth game for the season, played at the picturesque Pakenham Cricket Ground, and Wombats skipper John Moore won the toss and elected to field.
It took 20 overs before the Wombats claimed their first wicket when Mike Newton trapped Bill Wigmore LBW for 11 (20).
Tight accurate bowling restricted the score to 51 and the first three batters had retired after facing 30 balls: Colin Richardson 7, Wayne Stokes 15 and Arthur Pritchard 12.
Neil King became Mike Newton’s second victim, when he was bowled for a second-ball duck.
The Essendon/Barkley ST score had reached 88 by the 30th over with Graeme Bloom 10 (30) Ken Osborne 21 (30) and Graeme Lechte 14 (23) all retiring before David Malthouse 1 (2) was brilliantly caught by Jim Armstrong off the bowling of Graham Davey.
After 40 overs Peter Cassell 18 (23) and Paul Taylor 5 (17) were not out and Essendon/Barkley ST had scored 3 for 123.
The fielding and the bowling of the Wombats was exceptional,
Man of the match Mike Newton bowled six overs, with one maiden and took 2/14.
Other bowlers were: Graham Davey 6-1/16, Bob Phillips 6-0/8, Jim Gregory 6-0/20, Pieter Loos 6-0/24, Ron Milnes 5-0/22, Brendon Thomas 5-0/13,
Wombats’ skipper Moore decided to reverse the batting order to give some of the batters that had not had much of a hit this year a chance to show their worth.
This backfired with Graham Davey being caught by Ken Osborne off the bowling of Peter Taylor for a seven-ball duck and the Wombats were 1/2 in the third over.
Barry Cain 5 Ron Milnes 14 and Jim Armstrong 3 all retired after facing 30 balls.
This brought the Phillips ‘brothers’ together, Jeff and Bob, and this ended unfortunately for Jeff.
Bob straight drove the ball down the wicket through Neil King’s fingers (dropped catch) and onto the wicket.
Jeff was backing up and unfortunately out of his crease and was run out for 6 off 20 balls.
The Wombats were 2 for 44 in the 22nd over.
Bob Phillips 21 (30) retired before a 50-run partnership in seven overs between Pieter Loos and Mike Newton put the Wombats into a winning position, before Loos 28 (19) was run out and Newton 22 (30) retired.
In trying to win the game Jim Gregory became the third Wombat to be run out, without scoring off eight balls.
Brendon Thomas 3 (2) and Russell Ferguson 8 (16) took the score to 4 for 127 in the 38th over, the Wombats winning by six wickets.
Essendon/Barkley ST bowlers toiled hard all day, but Paul Taylor was the only wicket taker 6-1/10.
Other bowlers were: Graeme Lechte 4-0/6, Ken Osborne 6.3 0/16, Neil King 6-0/14, Colin Richardson 4-0/20, Wayne Stokes 3-0/20, Graeme Bloom 2-0/15, Bill Wigmore 5-0/14, David Malthouse 1-0/8.
This was another excellent game of over 70’s cricket that could have gone either way.
The final game for 2023 for the Wombats was a social game on Tuesday against the Eastern Dragon at East Burwood.
-John Moore-
