Gunnedah enjoyed a successful start to its MA Connolly Cup campaign as the hosts defeated Moree by 56 runs at Wolseley Park last Sunday.
A total of 159 in the 40-overs-per-side contest proved ample as Moree’s innings fell apart while being one player short.
A half-century from Ash White was the cornerstone of Gunnedah’s innings before six of Gunnedah’s seven bowlers shared the wickets.
Two wickets in the fifth over left the home side reeling at 2-8, before White and opener Justin Carter resurrected the innings with an 85-run partnership.
White struck five fours and two sixes before he was bowled for 59, and then the middle order crumbled as the hosts fell to 6-103.
Lachlan Straney opened his account with a boundary but was unable to repeat his heroics from the previous day, although Braith Winsor pushed the score along.
Winsor was last to go as he was caught from the second ball of the final over, having registered three boundaries in his 39.
Needing to score at exactly four runs per over, Moree was instantly in strife as Peter McCormack scattered Brady Polkinghorne’s stumps with the third ball of the innings without a run scored.
Polkinghorne was the first of five Moree players to be bowled.
Tom Vanderstok’s first two scoring shots were fours, but he scored only one more run before he too was bowled by McCormack.
None of Moree’s first five batters reached double figures, as Ateeq-ur Rahman bowled two of them while Winsor won an appeal for lbw.
Winsor claimed a second lbw as the wickets continued to fall.
After earlier taking 3-24 from eight overs as an opening bowler, Moree’s Nimesh Karunarathne struck seven fours and a six as he top-scored with 43 before falling to Will Hicks.
With only nine wickets needed for Moree to be all out, the game ended with the fourth ball of the 23rd over as Straney claimed a scalp.
Gunnedah’s MA Connolly Cup campaign continues this Sunday with an away game against Narrabri.
Gunnedah 159 (Ash White 59, Braith Winsor 39; JP Brown 3-6, Nimesh Karunarathne 3-24) defeated Moree 103 (Nimesh Karunarathne 43; Ateeq-ur Rahman 2-10, Peter McCormack 2-13, Braith Winsor 2-13) by 56 runs.
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