By Marcus Uhe
Hat-tricks are rare.
Four wickets in five balls is even rarer.
A seven wicket haul in a T20 contest? If Lachlan Brown’s figures in the Dandenong District Cricket Association T20 grand final were a steak, it would still be mooing.
The left arm finger spinner was calculated in his conviction and bowled with control and intent on his way to a landslide win in the Man of the Match award for Berwick on Sunday with sensational figures of 7/16 from his four overs, including his first hat-trick.
Tasked with bowling both in the dogged middle overs and at the death with Cranbourne in pursuit of quick runs, he outshone his spinning teammates in Ruwantha Kellapotha and Elliot Mathews with decisive wickets in the first innings to bowl his team into a winning position.
He began the 20th over of the innings with already excellent figures of 3/15 from his three overs, with the huge wickets of Harsaroup Singh, Hayden Lamb and Ketan Bakshi already to his name, and single-handedly sunk any prospect of a late Eagles flurry with a mesmerising final over.
Cranbourne’s final recognised batters in Dean McDonnell and Justin Dickinson were both caught by Kellapotha and Tommy Marks was trapped in front, with the umpire given no option but to raise his finger.
His final over will be what is remembered, but the wicket of Lamb was major turning point in the complexion of the contest.
With he and Julius Sumerauer rebuilding the innings, Brown seduced Lamb to take on Matthew Hague on the straight boundary, and won the contest between cat and mouse.
“That partnership was obviously massive,” Brown said after the game.
“The idea of getting one of those two out was huge, and then to get (Sumerauer) a couple of overs later through ‘Ruwy’, changed the dynamic of the game.
“To have one of those two at the crease at the end probably changes the outcome, but to have both of them out and the bottom over in, that made it a lot easier to wrap it up pretty quick.
“I had the right field at the right time, bowled the right ball and got lucky.”
Brown was asked to bowl a variety of roles in the final – bowl wide, flatter balls that new batters could not elevate, take the responsibility of bowling at the death, and be vulnerable to copping the treatment with batters lining up a short square boundary, having bowled in the powerplay earlier in the afternoon against Hallam Kalora Park.
The left-armer’s versatility, however, was the key, with a simple set of instructions running through his mind to reinforce his destiny within the 11.
As one of just three players remaining from the Bears’ 2023 T20 triumph, his knowledge and cool head under pressure was vital in winning the battles within the battle with the competition on the line.
“To be able to get the key moments right early in both games, we got the key wickets in the second game as well and from there we can grind away,” he said.
“Our motto is ‘find a way when we need to’ and early poles is the key.
“We’re probably one of the better grinding away teams and we find a way to win when we need to.
“We didn’t get through last year and won it the year so before, so it’s good to be able to come back.
“We don’t get to play on anything like this and to get a win is awesome.
“The culture that we’ve got as a group, we’ve sort of formed a DNA and it’s the same for the twos as well, they’re all really close and we’re all really close as a unit.
“You wouldn’t want to play anywhere else.”
