Marcus Worrall gets on the front foot for Werribee. 71955 Picture: DAMIAN VISENTINI
BY MICHAEL ESPOSITO
A BRILLIANT piece of fielding could well have won the match for Balwyn against a competitive Werribee that fell short by 38 runs at the conclusion of the first round of the Sub-District cricket season on Saturday.
Werribee’s Kyle Andrews was run-out for 63 by Nicholas Hailey, and the remaining three wickets tumbled quickly afterwards
“That was the thing that tipped the balance towards Balwyn a little bit,” Werribee coach Travis Bean said about the run-out. Before the dismissal of Andrews, who notched up his first half-century in first XI cricket, Werribee was 6/157 chasing 209.
But Werribee succumbed to what Bean said was an unfortunate habit that his team had picked up.
We tend to have lost wickets in groups, it happened a little bit last year as well,” he said. “Balwyn bowled very well and very straight to keep us under pressure all day.”
Openers David Wolfe (27) and Marcus Worrall (36), in his first XI debut, put Werribee in a good position with an opening partnership of 51, but Sean Dean was bowled LBW for a duck and Adam Alifraco was dismissed for eight, before Andrews steadied the ship.
When Worrall was sent back to the pavilion, Bean and Andrews made a point of spending some time at the crease, and built a 49-run partnership before Bean was dismissed for 10, and Matthew Palmer clean bowled for a duck. Werribee went from 4/139 to 6/139 and the pressure started mounting.
“Once you get a little bit behind the eight ball you start to worry about the run rate, and in the end we came up short,” Bean said
After the game I said yes we got beaten but there’s a lot of positives to come out of it.”
Two major positives came in the first day’s play the week before, when Brad Hatton took a five-wicket haul in his first game from the club. Hatton recently moved to Melbourne from the NT for work reasons. Hatton was a previous state representative for NT.
Bean also praised the performance of Jonathon Burton, who took four wickets in 24 overs.
“He bowled amazingly straight. He’s going to do a lot of bowling for us this year and deserved his four wickets.”
