By Marcus Uhe
Narre South skipper Kyle Hardy said he struggled to think of a comparable day of cricket like it.
His side’s clash with St Mary’s on Saturday at Carroll Reserve saw 25 wickets fall, the Lions eyeing off a critical 10 points for an outright win that will completely revive their finals hopes, should things go to plan for Hardy’s side next week.
Narre South leads by 21 runs after day one, the Saints well and truly on the ropes in their second innings.
Rolled for 37 in just 18.1 overs, the Saints then dismissed the Lions for 106, before losing five wickets of their own before stumps in the second innings for 48 runs.
“It was pretty ridiculous,” Hardy said.
Hardy won the toss and chose to bowl on what he described as a “soft” wicket, much to the delight of his bowlers.
His opening pair cashed in on a bowler-friendly deck, running through the St Mary’s top order with ruthless effect.
When Susantha Pradeep became Callan Tout’s third victim, the score read 5/11 in the seventh over, the wheels well and truly removed on a vehicle crashing to an embarrassing scoreline.
The hero of last Tuesday night’s T20, Saveen Nanayakkara, was the first to go in the opening over, and the Saints simply never recovered.
Raveen Nanayakkara’s 12 was the only score in double figures for the likely relegation-bound St Mary’s, the wickets shared between the bowling group of Tout (3/13), Alex Cruickshank (2/11), Ruween Wijesinghe (3/11) and Jawed Hussaini (1/2).
“I think everyone was pretty switched-on and they weren’t getting carried-away, they weren’t getting too greedy, but they were continuing to hit their spots, and obviously that was working out for us,” Hardy said of his bowlers.
“There wasn’t really a period where I thought we were getting too over-zealous and trying to take a wicket, it was just happening for us.
“There was obviously a couple of shots that didn’t come off, which is going to happen, but I think that was due to the areas that we were bowling, in particular at the start with ‘Touty’ bowling good areas and so was Alex (Cruickshank).
“They started us off and then from there, I think it was going to be pretty hard for any batter that was coming in.”
Delighted by what he had just witnessed, Hardy then had the daunting task of putting on the pads and preparing to face a quality seam attack, led by Deeshan Umagiliyage and Susantha Pradeep.
As he and Vineth Jayasuriya contemplated the path ahead, they settled on a plan of attack to extract what they could from the surface and maximise their opportunities.
“The mindset that ‘Vinnie’ (Jayasuriya) and I went in with was ‘If there’s one in our area, or if there was one we thought we could hit, we were going to try and hit it’.
“If it was really short, we were going to go for it, or if it was really full, we were going to go for it, because eventually on those sorts of pitches, you’re going to go out; just trying to survive wasn’t going to work.
“So we thought we’d try to knock-off the runs as quickly as we could, trying to play good cricket shots, and then see what happens from there.”
Jayasuriya matched the home side’s total on his own, hitting a 37 that was worth “80 or 90” in the eyes of his skipper and opening partner.
With the lead secured early, Lions batters played with an aggressive mindset for the remainder of the innings, but without major success.
Outside of Jayasuriya’s 37, none of his teammates could add scores of significance to press-home their advantage after a dominant opening session with the ball.
Scores of 17 from Hardy and Jeevan Mendis were as good as it got for the Lions as Pradeep led his side’s fightback into the contest.
The captain-coach took 4/28 from his 12 overs with the key middle-order wickets of Callum Nicholls, Harsha de Silva and Jeevan Mendis for just 28 combined runs.
Dimuth Umagiliyage continued his excellent season with the ball for St Mary’s, keeping his name in the upper echelon of the wicket-taker’s list with 3/33 from his 16 overs.
With a lead of 69 after the first innings, Narre South had its nose in front of the contest having secured first innings points, but the game was still up for grabs when Saveen Nanayyakara and Wendyl Pires walked out to open the batting for the second time in the day.
By the time stumps was called, however, the game seemed to be the Lions’ for the taking.
The openers both secured pairs with their second ducks of the day, as did number four Safaras Moahomad.
St Mary’s was 3/2 after the opening 17 deliveries, Tout and Cruickshank rising to the challenge once again with a blistering opening display.
Chameera Fernando offered the strongest opposition, digging in for a gritty seven off 63 balls, to stave-off the humiliation of an outright victory completed in a single day.
St Mary’s will resume the second day at 5/48, a further 21 runs away from making the visitors bat again.
“’Touty’ set the standard from the start,” Hardy said.
“The pitch got a bit better towards the end when the sun came out, but that was probably only for the last 10 overs or so.
“But because we didn’t have any sun throughout the day, I think it pretty much stayed the same throughout the whole match.
“But all bowlers that were bowling, were bowling their areas, so it would have been tough to be facing.”
Second-last, but card-carrying members of the middle-table logjam, 10 points for a likely outright win could catapult the Lions into third place, depending on other results around Turf 1.
It’s a fact not lost on Hardy’s men, needing to make the most of their final handful of opportunities after a frustrating campaign to date.
The Lions face one of the tougher runs home of any side in Turf 1, with Berwick, Springvale South and Buckley Ridges all on the docket to wrap up the home-and-away season.
“If we can get 10 points, it’s obviously going to go towards setting up our season, which is what we want to be doing,” Hardy said.
“There was a little discussion, but it wasn’t a huge talking point, we were just going out there to try and get a win first and foremost, then see what happens after that.”
