By Marcus Uhe
14 blocks of 10.
Cranbourne captain-coach Harrison Carlyon outlined the task to his Cranbourne teammates before play ahead of a tricky chase against Coomoora in a vital Turf 2 contest of the Dandenong District Cricket Association.
They needed just 140 to win, but begun the day knowing they’d get no further assistance from Carlyon, Hayden Lamb and Cameron Kelly, the side’s three leading run scorers.
Carlyon simplified the assignment, outlining the increments on his whiteboard that accompanied his side’s awaiting batters, and his Eagles responded tremendously, passing with flying colours – specifically, blue and gold.
“Every time we got 10 runs we’d tick it off the board,” he said of the theory.
“We worked our way down from 14 to one and it stops everyone looking at the bigger number.
“It’s a mind, mental thing.
“I said to the boys, to be 3/30, maybe where we were at the start of the season we might not have got those runs, but we’ve worked through a lot of things this season and that’s really pleasing to see.
“We had a bad last hour on Saturday but to come back and continue playing the way we wanted to play, and chase down that score with confidence, was great.”
Resuming the assignment after reaching stumps last week was Tommy Marks and Dean McDonnell.
Marks added just a single run to his overnight total, falling to an exceptional diving catch behind the stumps from Jarrod Munday at 4/36.
Coomoora had tightened the screws and looked in ominous touch, restricting the Eagles to singles and twos as balls plugged in the sandy Casey Fields surface with the boundary in sight.
Scoring was tricky, but McDonnell and Harsaroup Singh picked gaps and found an occasional boundary to keep the run rate ticking.
12 overs of seam to open the day gave way when Liam Hard tossed the ball to the ace up his sleeve in match-winning spinner Malan Madusanka.
Conditions looked ripe for him to spin his side to another victory, but Singh had other ideas.
He defended the first two balls of his spell but released the shackles on the third, hitting the (at the time) competition’s leading wicket-taker over his head for six.
It unsettled Madusanka who so often has the game on his terms when looking to bowl his side to a result, and his rhythm faltered and fluctuated as a result.
Dean Krelle grabbed McDonnell in the prevailing over after a catch went down at square leg the previous ball, opening the door for Coomoora once more at 5/72, but with Singh set, and with compensation runs on the mind after a lean summer, the threat was quickly extinguished.
Singh was sweeping both Madusanka and Amarjot Singh excellently and nullifying their impact to short, intermittent spells, with new batter Justin Dickinson providing the ideal foil at the other end.
Harsaroup Singh reached his first 50 of the summer but fell on the stroke of the tea break for 65, thanks to an excellent diving catch from Liam Hard.
But his innings, a clear best of the summer, put his side in a comfortable position at 6/137.
Some tail-end aggression from Julius Sumerauer upon the resumption of play after tea, with only a further 20 runs required, saw the Eagles home by four wickets.
Singh’s innings was a standout for Carlyon, critical in nullifying the looming threat of Madusanka, who finished wicketless for the first time this summer.
“Looking at previous scorecards, the opening bowlers probably haven’t taken as many wickets as he has,” Carlyon said of Madusanka.
“To keep him out of the game, there’s a pretty high chance we were going to win the game, which I thought we did well.
“We didn’t just sit on him, we applied pressure when he bowled a bad ball and knocked him around when they put the two guys back.
“’Hars’ did that well and that’s exactly how we wanted to play.
“He’s (Singh) a phenomenal all-round cricketer and it was just a matter of time for him to click into some touch.”
With Parkmore’s loss to HSD, the Eagles soar to the top of the table with four rounds remaining in an ever-so-close scramble for seeding.
Plenty of cricket remains in the summer, but it’s an enviable position they find themselves in with four rounds to play.
Coomoora will regret a poor fielding display in which a handful of chances went to ground, but will bolster their line up in the coming weeks with a handful of key players returning to the senior side.
Opening batters Lance Baptist and Rahoul Pankhania will be welcome additions to a side that has relied heavily on its bowling depth, as will Sam Wetering, a leader of the bowling group.
