A competitive showing from Gunnedah wasn’t enough to produce a victory in last Saturday’s second grade cricket contest at the Tamworth-based Belmore Oval, as the North Tamworth Redbacks won by 56 runs.
The contest was scheduled for Wolseley Park, before it had to be relocated due to rain in Gunnedah on the day.
An unbroken last wicket partnership of 25 enabled Norths to finish with 198 runs in its 40 overs, before Gunnedah fell comfortably short of the target while also batting out its allotted overs.
The Redbacks lost wickets in clumps but were able to put together several useful partnerships, before Gunnedah had a brief flurry of runs in its first seven overs and then lost momentum.
After the Redbacks were invited to bat first, Evan Brownsmith scored a quick 23 before he was caught by Paddy Paul off Nick Herring in the sixth over with the total on 34.
Fellow opener Hamish Batley lifted the tempo with two sixes and a four in quick succession, before being caught by Jono Middlebrook off Jack Hayes in the ninth over.
Max Daly was caught-and-bowled by Herring before another run was added, leaving Norths shakily placed at 3-62 before captain Samuel Holt struck a six.
Holt was caught by Oscar Middlebrook off Hayes just three balls later to leave the Redbacks 4-72.
Nate Grasnick provided stability at number four, but he managed only 11 runs off 58 balls.
Adam Miller scored 26 in a partnership of 33 before he was run out, and the next partnership produced 35 runs before Grasnick was also run out.
A blinding catch from Harry Paul left Norths 7-142 with seven overs remaining, before Toby Ireland went on the attack. Three fours in the 34th over were followed by a four and a six in the 36th over.
Norths lost two wickets with the total on 173, as Ireland became Zac Wheatland’s second scalp before Cameron Baird became Hayes’s third victim while the 38th over was a wicket-maiden.
The penultimate over contained three dot balls but also six runs in wides, as well as two fours and a single to David MacRae.
The final over yielded 10 runs, including two from the last ball when a four would have taken the total to 200.
Herring and the youthful Harry Paul were Gunnedah’s tidiest bowlers, with Herring taking 2-24 from eight overs while Paul’s six wicketless overs also went for three runs per over.
Some of Gunnedah’s bowlers paid dearly for waywardness, as 29 of the 30 sundries came from wides before the Redbacks bowlers gave away 20 runs in wides and seven in no-balls.
Having opened the bowling and batting for Gunnedah, Jakob Vearing had no joy in either department and was dismissed in the fourth over with a single to his name. Soon afterwards, a no-ball provided a subsequent free hit for Wheatland who promptly opened his account with a six.
The sixth over also contained a free hit which Josh Langdon clouted for six. Fourteen runs came from the over, before Langdon struck the final three balls of the seventh over to the boundary to make the score 1-39.
Gunnedah soon crumbled, as Wheatland and Langdon fell in quick succession with the total in the 40s. Having missed several games with an injury, captain Richard Avendano was next to depart as his team stumbled to 4-62 after 17 overs.
Hayes and Paddy Paul were tied down, before their dismissals left Gunnedah needing 99 runs from 50 balls.
After Paddy Paul had often scored more runs and at a quicker rate than his son in third and fourth grade last season – including when they opened together in fourth grade – things changed in a higher grade last Saturday as Harry finished with 24 off 39 balls compared with his dad’s 10 off 37.
Harry Paul clubbed a couple of sixes, and Ken Walters cleared the boundary once but the required run rate was well beyond reach.
Ireland rattled the stumps with successive balls in the 39th over, and finished with the best figures for Norths.
At the foot of the seven-team ladder with four defeats following a first-up victory, Gunnedah contests the fifth-placed City United at Riverside this Saturday after City United had a mere 21-run loss to the top-placed Old Boys last Saturday.
North Tamworth Redbacks 9-198 (Hamish Batley 35; Jack Hayes 3-44, Nick Herring 2-24, Zac Wheatland 2-36) defeated Gunnedah 8-142 (Josh Langdon 28; Toby Ireland 3-20, Marc Tyler 2-15) by 56 runs.
