By Jonty Ralphsmith
A withering six-over period midway through Coomoora’s opening spell effectively killed the tension of the Turf 3 grand final early on day two.
Opening bowlers Joel Robertson and Dean Krelle both carried their individual batting momentum into the bowling innings, picking up four wickets between them in the opening spell.
Within that was a momentum-affirming 27-ball period which delivered three wickets for two runs.
Robertson finished with 2/25 of nine while Krelle sent down 15 overs for 3/43.
Only twice during the home-and-away season did that pair open the bowling together, largely due to injury, but there was never doubt this was the pair to deliver finals success.
“We’ve found the perfect combination,” skipper Liam Hard said.
“Joel is very accurate – he has the inswinger and outswinger and straightens us up and Krelley bowls his areas; later on you can bring on Nick (Lloyd) and Malan (Madusanka).
“We got our chemistry right at the right time which is important because sometimes if you get there too early, people get comfortable so I’m stoked with how we did it.
“Our bowling has been our catalyst this year.”
Robertson finished with 13 wickets at 14 this season, Krelle took 28 at 12, Lloyd claimed 13 at 25 and medium-pacer Michael Klonaridis claimed 20 at 15 highlighting the balanced and deep seam-up bowling attack.
Hard said there was no specific plans to dislodge league leading run-scorer Jackson Marie, who scored 148 and 76 against Coomoora in the two home-and-away matches.
“The two (opening bowlers) wanted to bowl to him today,” Hard said.
“Dean was like ‘I’ve got him with my outswingers to lefties’ and Joel was hit early, but he pulled it back a bit and once the dots came in, we were able to get him.
“The plan was to keep it tight and hope he made a mistake which happened.”
Hard was also full of praise for left-arm orthodox bowler Madusanka, who has 54 wickets at 7.17, including 28 in the last five games of the season.
The 36-year-old former first-class cricketer ties down an end and bowls long spells, controlling the middle overs of two-day matches.
“He’s been this good for three seasons – he takes wickets at good times,” the captain said.
“He is a godsend to our club with the experience he has.
“He leaves his best for game day and we let him go.
“He’s the biggest one who we let set his own fields.”
