Owen Alsop sends down a ball for the premiership winning West Newport on Saturday. 78690 Picture: KRISTIAN SCOTT
By LIAM TWOMEY
WEST Newport has pulled off one of the upsets of the year to claim the Williamstown and District Cricket Association premiership.
Taking on league leader Williamstown Imperials, West Newport were led by Corey Irvine who produced a staggering individual effort.
Fresh from seven wickets in the first innings of the match, Irvine hit 48 runs while batting at number 10 to give West Newport the lead.
He then returned in the second innings to create more headaches for the Imperials’ batting line-up.
Irvine added another seven wickets to bring his match tally to 14 as well as claiming a hat-trick for good measure.
Saturday marked the fourth time the fast bowler had taken seven wickets in an innings for the season, after he took 7/40 against Gelli-
brand and 7/32 against Newport-Digman.
It was also Irvine’s third 10-wicket match for the year.
After bowling out the Imperials for 142 in their first innings, West Newport made a careful start to its innings, with wicket keeper Christian Elliott and Ross Cassidy adding 54 for the first wicket.
When Cassidy was out for 21, a mini collapse was triggered in the West Newport innings.
The maroon and gold lost 5/19 as the score card read 5/93 and the Imperials were back in the game.
Trent Jones was joined at the crease by Matthew Shiell and the two combined for a match-turning 65-run partnership to guide the score to 5/138.
But that soon became 7/138 as both batsmen were quickly dismissed.
Through the final three wickets, West Newport was able to add an important 76 runs to the total
to bring the first innings lead up to 90.
Eight West Newport batsmen scored between 13 and 48 to ensure the workload was shared across the batting line-up.
After being so good all year the Imperials’ batsmen struggled to reel in the deficit as a combination of pressure and quality bowling proved too much.
Williamstown was bowled out for 105 leaving West Newport with just 15 runs required to lift the WDCA A1 premiership cup.
