Past Kilmore Cricket Club premiership players reunited to watch the club’s cross-town clash with Broadford on Saturday, as round 12 of of Gisborne and District Cricket Association, GDCA, action got underway.
Kilmore hosted Broadford for the pair’s second Johnstone Shield meeting – this time playing in the two-day format as opposed to the one-day match in round three.
Last time they met it was Kilmore that came out on top in a thrilling late-game victory, with the hosts keen to continue that trend this time around.
Sent out to bowl, Kilmore captain and coach Jacob Walton said his side made some important moves early in the innings to limit the Broadford charge to 220 by the end of the day.
“We got an early wicket to get Ash Wood out – he likes to make runs for fun against us a lot of the time so it was good to get him out pretty cheaply,” he said.
“Mitch Collier and Gareth Sharp batted pretty well together and put on 50-odd and we were lucky to get a couple of quick ones there.
“From there, we just kept toiling along and got a few wickets through the middle-order.”
Braden Hickey proved to be a thorn in Kilmore’s side as he chalked up 60 before being bowled out by Elliot Frendo, while Sharp put on 41 runs ahead of Collier and Riley Nolan on 27 and 20 respectively.
Frendo was the home side’s leading bowler on 3/33, followed by a spate of doubles from Josh Buttler, Brent Proctor and Josh Squire.
Youngster Stuart Partridge also made an important achievement in taking his first senior wicket for Kilmore.
“It was really good to see another young kid coming through,” Walton said.
“Unfortunately, we took the last wicket at 5.45pm, so we had to pad up and bat for an over. Elliot and Kevin [Craddock] opened for us and got us through to stumps, none down, which was good.
“We’ll now look at taking the 220 as far as we can … if we put together a couple of good partnerships we’ll go pretty close.”
Kilmore’s clubrooms were attended by several premiership players from the 2013-14 Seymour District Cricket Association, SDCA, season – the season in which Kilmore defeated Broadford to win the A Grade flag.
“It was good to see a couple of legends of the club – there were a few around that have won a lot of flags in both the SDCA and everywhere,” Walton said.
“The crowd was good to have on side. There were a few patches through the day where it felt they weren’t on our side, but it made it interesting out on the field.”
In other Johnstone Shield action, Wallan hosted East Sunbury and was able to keep the visitors to 173 runs.
Leading runscorer for the Thunder was Shiran Ekanayake Mudiyanselage on 56, however the impressive bowling of Wallan’s Ryan Bonner meant the innings came to an abrupt end in the 72nd over as the final two batsmen went out off two consecutive balls.
Bonner took three wickets on the day, followed by two each from Bryan Vance and Scott O’Donnell, while Chris Vecchie took two catches.
Wallan has been among the Johnstone Shield’s best with the bat this season and should make a strong impression when play resumes this weekend.
McIntyre Cup
Romsey got off to a flier on the weekend – scoring 444 runs on the road against Rupertswood before stumps with two batsmen still to bat.
Captain and coach Ben Way made a whopping 128 runs, while Matthew Milne stepped up to the plate with 119 of his own.
Sean Day, Chris Burkett and Jed Richardson were ever-solid, scoring 40, 39, and 31 respectively.
Max Howell was Rupertswood’s strongest bowler on the day and took four wickets – albeit while conceding 116 runs.
With Romsey undefeated this season and Rupertswood placed second-last on the ladder with two wins, it will be a difficult ask for the home side with the bat this weekend.
