WAGIN travelled to Cuballing to take on the tigers in the last Twenty20 match of the year.
Wagin was missing some key players for the match including captain Kim Davidson and his dynamo son Jackson, but they were replaced by equally talented players to challenge a very good Cuballing side.
Cuballing won the toss and chose to bat first which seemed to be the best decision at the time.
Steve Kerr took the new ball and started well, swinging the ball in all directions early and catching the Cuballing openers off guard.
Young speed bowler Wade Enright returned to the team and immediately impacted the game beating the edge of the bat continuously.
Enright was the first to claim a wicket, trapping the opening batsman in front LBW and gave Wagin a great start.
He followed up seven balls later to take his second wicket when Stuart Johansson held onto a sharp catch at square leg.
Lane Taylor was the first change bowler and took a couple of overs to find his rhythm before snaring the prized wicked of Kendall Ballard for 38 runs, a massive wicket for Wagin.
Shane Bliss was next introduced to the attack after Kerr bowled an economical four overs for only 17 runs, a great effort from the opener.
Bliss took his first wicket at the start of his second over and his very next ball ripped ex-Wagin player Andrew Gath’s middle stump from the ground to leave Bliss on a hat-trick.
The field was brought in close for the third delivery and it struck the Cuballing batsman Francis on the pad.
All the Wagin players went up appealing together but were only to be turned down by the umpire.
Cuballing made a fight back in the middle order putting on a handy 36 run partnership.
Jason Taylor was thrown the ball but uncharacteristically couldn’t find his rhythm but was also unlucky not to snare a couple of wickets.
Then off spin extraordinaire Stuart Johansson was introduced to the attack at the death of the match.
Johansson took two late wickets in the last over of the match to restrict Cuballing to a modest 116 runs after their 20 overs, an awesome effort from the boys.
Wagin felt they were in with a chance for a major upset and sent Steve Kerr and Brenden Hall out to open the batting.
Kerr was the danger man early scoring his first 23 runs from just 15 deliveries, while Hall was knocking the ball around for singles and twos to rotate the strike.
The two moved past 50 runs in the seventh over and were looking well on top of the Cuballing attack.
With only five runs an over required, Kerr and Hall freed up their arms and put away the bad deliveries when they came.
Hall brought up his half century from 43 balls with back to back sixes, and Kerr soon followed suit hitting the winning runs and securing his maiden half century for Wagin and a brilliant 10 wicket win.
Pick of the bowlers were Stuart Johansson, Shane Bliss and Wade Enright each picking up two wickets each and the opening pair of Hall and Kerr got the job done with the bat, notching up their second 100 run partnership for the season.
Dwight Kellow was throwing himself all over the ground in the field as usual, and young Conan Holder and dad Mark Haverkort also fielded exceptionally all day.
Congratulations to the Wagin boys who were major underdogs going into the match; it was a great team effort to cement equal third spot on the ladder and a chance at playing Twenty20 finals this year.
Thank you to everyone who supported the club’s garage sale last weekend and to everyone who bought bags of sheep manure.
All manure has been sold already within a week, but orders can still be taken for anyone interested and will continue to deliver to your door.
All proceeds are going to send the junior under 16 cricketers to Country Week in Perth in January.
Thank you to Ewen Foley Agencies for donating the bags, the generous donation and support from the Wagin Co-Op and Michael and Cheryl Taylor for all of the manure.
Cuballing
R Ballard lbw W Enright 9
B Francis ct S Johansson b W Enright 25
B Forrest b S Bliss 12
K Ballard ct J Taylor b L Taylor 38
A Gath b S Bliss 0
G Francis ct S Blis b S Johansson 27
K Van Spall ct B Hall b S Johansson 9
Sundries 3 (1nb, 1w, 1b)
(20 overs)
Total 7/116
Bowlers (Wagin)
S Kerr 4-0-0/17, W Enright 4-0-2/25, L Taylor 4-0-1/38,
S Bliss 4-1-2/13, J Taylor 2-0-0/14, S Johansson 2-0-2/8
Wagin
B Hall not out 57
S Kerr not out 51
Sundries 9 (7w, 2nb)
(172 overs)
Total 0/117
Bowlers (Cuballing)
G Francis 3-0-0/30, B Francis 3-0-0/13, B Forrest 4-0-0/25
K Van Spall 3-0-0/19, A Gath 2-0-0/20, B George 22-0-0/10
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