By Jonty Ralphsmith
It was a weekend of storylines in the DDCA Turf 2 competition headlined by a century off 28 balls and a first-up wins to Doveton.
Needing 235 for victory against Keysborough, Lyndale’s Himesh Galhenage Don came it at three when the score already sat at 75 after just eight overs.
It gave him the perfect platform to go BANG.
After his first ball was a dot, Galhenage Don sent the next ball to the rope and faced just one more dot ball for his innings.
Five of his first 10 balls cleared the rope, which had him at 37 at that stage of his innings.
He brought up his 50 five balls later, and finished his innings with 12 sixes and five fours in a destructive half hour of cricket at Barry Powell Reserve.
He took 71 of his runs off Yohan Arumadura, who went at an economy of 25.33 in his three overs, smashed for four consecutive sixes at one point, after himself hitting a sublime century to go with five wickets last week.
Galhenage Don’s century was chanceless as he targeted the boundaries in front of the wicket, with the knock coming off the back of a vital 77 in Lyndale’s chase against Cranbourne the previous week.
The big hitting saw Lyndale to the mammoth total within 21 overs.
“He comes in hard and and that’s what he does,” said club secretary Rodney Keyaerts, who was watching the match.
“He has the uncanny ability to lift the ball up and get it over the fence – he punches it and it just goes.
“We had to go given Keysy’s score and after the openers got us off to a good start, he came in and just went – the poor bowlers copped the wrath of a batter in form.
“Our captain Ben Montgomery didn’t talk to him before his knock because he knows whatever he says will go in one ear and out the other so there was no specific instruction to go that hard, that’s just what he does.”
While the day will be remembered for the quickfire ton, the result is a negative one for Keysborough, seeing them fall to 1-2 for the season, the ability to post such an imposing total reinforces they are a dangerous team.
Star playmaker Christo Otto is yet to really fire a shot this season, but his men continue to find ways to put runs on the board, this week off the blade of Hennadige Fernando, whose 76 off 39 batting at seven rescued his team.
The Doveton win means that all turf two clubs have tasted victory after three or four games for each club, a nod to the evenness of the respective competitions.
Playing in its first season back in turf two, Doveton was all over Parkfield, which beat powerhouse Cranbourne two weeks ago and pushed Heinz Southern Districts last week.
After fielding a weakened side for various reasons across the first couple of weeks, Nathan Wilson’s men flexed their muscle in bowling Parkfield out for just 84.
Trent Rolfs claimed the wicket of Dishan Malalasekera who is coming off two 50s to start the year, and the first of Ryan Hendy’s five wickets was returning Parkfield star Matthew Goodier.
From there, it was all Doveton, proving it could compete in turf two, having Parkfield 9/38, and invoking a collapse of 6/2, before a 46-run 10th wicket partnership made the scoreline more respectable.
Hendy had a hand in nine wickets, taking four catches to go with his poles, before precautionarily going off for the last few overs of the game.
“He’s one of the best players to have played in the DDCA,” said skipper Nathan Wilson.
“He might be 40-years-old but once he gets his tail up and gets into his rhythm and lands it in the spot, I have played alongside him for 15-20 years and he was back to his absolute best on the weekend.”
Ricky Johnson and the returning Simon Mackie, playing in his first game of the season, saw Doveton to victory inside 12 overs.
“We wanted to be really positive in getting those runs so that was really good and by getting that win, the whole vibe’s changed already now, that win was really important, it could be a real game-changer for us and hopefully we can keep it going,” Wilson added.
“I just asked our boys to turn our season around – we fielded really well and our energy was up which was a massive turnaround from the first couple of games when we didn’t have that luck in the field.”
“We knew if we could get their openers early, we could put pressure on the middle order but to get so many wickets so quickly; being out there, I was scratching my head thinking ‘is this real’.
“It was fun and we haven’t had a lot of fun in the first two results.”
At Beaconsfield, openers Mark Cooper and Tyler Clark put on more than 50 runs together for the third consecutive week.
Between them, the pair has scored 313 runs this season at a collective average of 52, their partnerships netting an average of 97 runs.
It has helped catapult Beaconsfield to an undefeated beginning of the season.
While neither Cooper (37 off 57) nor Clark (22 off 75) was able to kick on with their start, they gave Beaconsfield something to bowl at, and bowled HSD out for 133, giving them an 11-run win.
HSD openers Brent Patterson and Ethan French also gave their team a solid launching pad, but each was deceived by Ashan Madushanka.
Callan Tout also continued on his solid form, picking up two wickets including that of Triyan De Silva, before Cooper, a leggie, claimed three tail-end wickets to seal the result.
Order was restored for Cranbourne in a dangerous match against Narre Warren, with the Sweeney boys leading them to victory.
The win was a crucial stabiliser in the context of the club’s season after a final-ball rain-affected heartbreaker against Parkfield was followed by a surprise loss to Lyndale.
All 10 Narre Warren wickets fell to spin after each of their top three made valuable contributions, led by a valuable 49 to Zach Allan.
Peter Sweeney claimed seven wickets in a masterfully tight display of left arm orthodox bowling.
He conceded 35 runs off his 11.3 overs and once he and fellow slow bowler Harsaroup Singh (3/46 off 12) were brought on, they essentially ran through the Narre Warren order.
Set 163 for victory, Mick Sweeney, batting at five, led the chase with an unbeaten 68 which included 11 boundaries.
He partnered with Matt Collett (34 not out) who appears to have adjusted seamlessly to his role lower in the order, the pair putting on an 87-run partnership to finish the match with 62 balls remaining.
