SATURDAY afternoon proved to be the perfect occasion for a dual celebration by Wandella, with it celebrating a club legend’s milestone with a season defining 65-run win over Woorinen at Riverside Park.
While the commemoration of veteran Luke Murray’s 250th senior match for the Bombers may have been the focus heading into the match, the return to form and subsequent victory over the second placed Tigers was the story afterwards.
The win lifted Wandella to third on the SHDCA ladder.
The home side didn’t have everything all their own way, however and were staring down the barrel of another poor performance with the bat at 6-67. But from that moment it was a different match, with Ryan Barnes (28), Bohden McKnight (27), Luke Murray (16) and Kyle Hodges (10 not out) all combining to end the Bombers innings at 9-151.
“We were very happy with the result, the boys showed a bit of ticker, especially with the weather being so hot,” Wandella captain Ryan Barnes said post-match.
“It was good to see a few of the boys stand up, especially ‘Moorey’ (Peter Moore) taking five-for with the ball and bowling a lot of overs in the heat.
“A few of the boys chipped in with the bat, but we weren’t looking too good there for a while. But we managed to put a competitive score on the board and then defend it.
“It was good to see different guys chipping in with the bat, so the positives are if we can get our top order to fire from now on, we should get a good result.
“We were pretty lucky in that we lost the toss and were put into bat, which was what we wanted to do anyway.
“The fact that we were able to bat out our overs left them out in the heat for a long time and that helped us a little bit I think.”
With Robert Rush absent from the Tigers bowling attack, it left opener Guri Singh to shoulder the bulk of the load, bowling a Herculean 21 overs in oppressive conditions, returning a team high 4-55.
His performance was, however bettered by Wandella opener Peter Moore, who finished with a game high 5-37 from 12.5 overs and included the key wickets of Dean Morpeth, Darren Rushton and Mitchell Uhlhorn.
The Tigers struggled to build consistent partnerships with the bat and lost wickets in clumps, losing their first three wickets in the space of four runs, before losing 3-11 and 4-2 later in their innings.
With the six points secured, the Bombers then turned their attention back to Murray, with Barnes full of praise for his team’s ability to fight their way through adversity in order to honour their teammates milestone.
“It was a very proud moment for him (Murray) and the club, it was great personally for me as captain to play alongside him in such a big milestone and come away with the win,” Barnes said.
“Considering the situation we were in, to show a bit of ticker for him and come away with the win, we were very happy with the day.
“We have some tough games coming up, including Barham-Koondrook, who we’ve struggled against a little bit at times.
“We don’t have cruisey run home and we’ll have to play our best cricket to play finals, but we’ve given ourselves a chance to make it.
“Now we just have to play consistently good cricket, week in, week out.”
Wandella have the bye this Saturday, before facing RSL, Barham-Koondrook and Ultima-TUF in the run home, while Woorinen will meet Nyah District in a re-match of this season’s Kookaburra Cup grand finalists.
