By Marcus Uhe
Buckley Ridges is champions of the Dandenong District Cricket Association’s Turf 1 competition for the ninth time after a 64-run win over Springvale South on Sunday afternoon’s grand final.
Two seasons of heartbreak are long in the rear view mirror for the Bucks, vanquishing the demons of grand finals past against the Bloods in comprehensive fashion at Arch Brown Reserve.
Sent in to bat, the Bucks ground their way to 8/257 on Saturday and did the business with the ball on Sunday, bowling Springvale South out for 193.
The Bloods, with history beckoning as the potential first team to win a hat-trick of Turf 1 premiers, let the chance to etch their names into the history books slip through their fingers.
Here’s how it played out.
DAY ONE
Winning the toss and choosing to bowl, the pressure was on Springvale South to make early inroads on a pitch that looked suited for batting.
Yoshan Kumara removed the in-form Jake Cronin for just three, slashing a cut shot to Ryan Quirk at gully, and when Jackson Sketcher had Josh Holden caught in the ring in his first over for 33, the Bloods had the two openers back in the sheds within 11 overs.
Roshane Silva joined Ben Wright at the crease, the Bucks’ two lynchpins and highest-regarded batters given their experience at international and first class level, respectively, and shaped as the big partnership.
Not much appeared to phase the pair as the Bloods turned to their dynamic duo of Blade Baxter and Jarryd Straker to settle in for another marathon spell, the tonic for a Buckley collapse in the previous contest two weeks prior.
When the Bucks took down Straker at Park Oval, they made a point of not giving their wicket to Straker, but in the qualifying final, Straker was allowed to dictate terms.
Once set at the crease, the two made certain to show their intent to the crafty finger spinner.
Wright advanced down the wicket in Straker’s third over and lifted him over the midwicket boundary with a glorious on-drive as the pair reached a 50-run stand, before Wright cut Straker to the boundary late in the over for a rare 10-run concession.
In his fourth over, Silva matched the intent shown by his partner, he too dancing down the wicket hit Straker down the ground for a boundary.
The pressure was on the Bloods, with the pair threatening to make a mockery of the Bloods’ bold decision at the toss.
Singles were easy to come by and the odd boundary sprinkled throughout reflected the ease with which the two were accumulating runs.
Springvale South persisted with Straker and he was rewarded not long before the lunch interval, as Silva perished.
Silva showed deft footwork but a lofted drive brought him unstuck, Sketcher taking a difficult catch low to his left at mid-off with the Sri Lankan on 24.
It was a costly and ultimately unnecessary blow for the Bucks, with the two looking so comfortable at the wicket and the dismissal coming completely against the run of play.
The run rate fell dramatically after Silva’s wicket, as Jayson Hobbs took his time to settle at the crease.
Baxter was hounding in around the wicket bowling with a packed offside field, and with Paul Hill keeping up to the stumps, the strangulation was on.
Straker struck Hobbs on the pads on multiple occasions but his appeals went unrewarded, the tension eventually lifted when the Buckley skipper lifted him down the ground.
On the stroke of lunch, Wright continued the assertive approach, but was given LBW attempting to sweep Straker on 57, leaving the Bloods cockahoop.
It was the breakthrough they wanted in the first session and combined with Silva’s removal, gave them the ascendency heading into the interval with the Bucks at 4/126.
Baxter and Straker continued their marathon spells after the break as the clamps were applied on Hobbs and Troy Aust.
With six wickets in hand after 50 overs, Aust began to show some scoring intent with sixes in consecutive overs to each of the bowling pair.
Baxter’s spell came to an end after 21 overs with Sketcher proving a difference maker once again, striking in his second over as Aust fell to a spectacular diving catch from Baxter at midwicket for 18, and Hobbs shortly after for a gritty 34.
It felt that the Bucks had missed a chance to attack with wickets in the shed, and now at 6/176 in the 62nd over, there was a danger in them not lasting the 80 overs.
Ishan Jayarathna upped the tempo but was cruelly run out in Baxter’s follow through, having not made his ground after backing-up on 30 in the 76th over.
Throughout the innings, Springvale South won the little moments, from the dismissals in the last half-hour before the lunch break, to spectacular catching and the fortune of the run out, it was shaping as Springvale South’s day.
Jayarathna looked set to launch in the final handful of overs, and in Michael Davies, the only batter to have success against Straker in the qualifying final, he had a partner capable of clearing the boundary and making quick runs.
At 6/199, the time to strike was now, but Baxter’s return quelled the threat.
His run out put all the pressure back on Davies as the final recgonised batter.
He holed-out on the long-on boundary to another excellent catch from Sketcher, for 29, leaving last week’s batting heroes in Westley Nicholas and Hussian Ali to make something from the final few overs.
A straight drive from Ali just cleared Sketcher’s leap on the straight boundary and a dropped catch from Kumara at the beginning of the final over helped the Bucks attain a minor foot-hold.
Now the little chances were starting to go their way, and finishing at 8/257, the Bucks reached stumps with their noses slightly infront.
Wright’s 55 was the highest score on the card, with Sketcher taking 3/49 to go with his three catches.
DAY TWO
Mitch Forsyth edged the innings’ first ball for four through the cordon and the first of the second over off his hip for four in what shaped as a poor omen for the Bucks.
He was shortly on his way for nine, and Brayden Sharp would soon follow suit, bringing the dangerous Jordan Wyatt to the crease to pair with Quirk.
Quirk looked in as good touch as he had all season, driving the ball with confidence and picking gaps in the field, and with Wyatt at the other end, the pair had the chance to put a nail in the Buckley Ridges coffin.
But Quirk fell to left-armer Farrid Khil, snaffled by Davies in the gully for 35 in what was a significant breakthrough before the lunch interval.
Wyatt played streakily in an action packed innings, freeing his hands and playing with the textbook cavalier approach that took him to Wookey Medal winning success.
He was dropped three times, by Davies at cover, by Holden at deep point and by Aust, and skied a ball to no-man’s land on the off side, with each occasion feeling like a huge moment in the contest.
Holden ran to his left and made it to the drop of the ball but fumbled at the crucial moment infront of the pavilion, with all watching from the comfort of the shade in disbelief that the chance went down.
Buckley knew the value of his wicket, and a player like Wyatt is not someone you can afford to let off the chain, not to mention multiple times.
But his reckless abandon only lasted an action-packed 22 deliveries, Khil the man once again with the huge scalp in the 25th over the delivery after Aust put him down, not making the same mistake two deliveries in a row.
Four down with only 25 overs bowled, Buckley was well and truly on top, sniffing blood and circling like sharks.
Baxter and Sketcher were tasked with rebuilding the innings and used a handful of overs to get themselves set.
Like Baxter and Sketcher had done 24 hours earlier, the squeeze was being applied to tremendous effect by the bowlers, with very few opportunities presenting themselves to hit boundaries or break the shackles.
Nicholas bowled the final over before lunch, his first of the day, and removed Sketcher for 10 off 39, with Buckley now eating lunch with their tails up, five wickets into the Springvale South batting lineup and into the all-rounders.
Kumara spooned a catch to a catching cover shortly after the lunch interval as Nicholas struck again, and a hobbled Mackenzie gritted through 16 deliveries for six before falling to a Davies yorker, the writing on the wall at 7/114.
In Baxter and Hill, two of the Bloods’ most experienced heads joined forces with a huge mission on their hands.
Hill, in just his sixth Turf 1 hit for the season, played the aggressor while Baxter rotated the strike, but clever fields made scoring difficult.
Jayarathna returned to the crease as Buckley pressed for an early result, and struck Hill on the shoulder with a vicious short ball.
He mixed the bouncer into this repertoire as an effort ball but Hill didn’t back down, attempting to hook him into a largely vacant leg side.
The approach soon brought his downfall, however, as Hill fended at a rising delivery outside off stump and into the awaiting hands of Cronin the cordon.
With the fall of Hill, victory looked a near certainty, no matter what heroics Baxter could muster from the other end.
Straker and Dowling helped to occupy their end of the crease, but their resistance only delayed the inevitable.
Straker skied a catch to Cronin at cover, and Baxter top edged a sweep into the sky, dropping into Aust’s gloves, to seal the result.
Khil and Nicholas, two unsung heroes of the Buckley lineup, finished 2/39 and 4/17, respectively.
Baxter’s 47 topscored for Springvale South.
Wright’s 57 in the first innings saw him crowned the Damian Fleming Medal winner as the best player in the grand final.
