Saturday Sundries | Epic finishes, sticky situations scatter Cricket Shepparton’s lower grades

This week’s edition features a hotbed of action from nail-to-the-nub finishes to questionable substitutes for bails and more.

News photographer Megan Fisher was behind the lens for the D-grade contest between Old Students and Karramomus.

The Great Escape

Stone cold thriller.

It’s really the only accurate way to verbally illustrate the finish to Karramomus versus Old Students in D-grade as the former stole victory in the unlikeliest of fashions.

Batting first, Students were sweating at 5-14 before Jason Wild came in and bashed the hosts to 9-180 with a magisterial 111 not out (nine fours, four sixes).

The Bloods’ start was breezy as they cruised to 2-108 thanks to Lyle Sinclair (62) and Jagjit Bawa (33), and despite losing a flurry of quick wickets, Karramomus was still in the driver’s seat.

All of a sudden, the runs dried up.

At 8-166, Karramomus needed 15 runs to win from the final over and up stepped Tace Bigmore to go big and belt the Bloods to a last-gasp triumph.

The number nine batter clubbed a six off Wild’s first delivery, two off the second and another maximum off the third to kill Students’ hopes of closing out the game.

Bigmore knocked a single through in the third-last ball of the innings, and that was all she wrote.

Stick to what you know

Another electric excerpt emerged from the weekend’s SJ Perry Shield action. However, the following example is great for entirely different reasons to Bigmore’s heroics.

The News has good mail that a broken bail called for some improvisation in the match between Pine Lodge and Tatura at Kialla West Recreation Reserve.

Images circulating around social media revealed umpires placed a twig on top of the stumps in place of the usual 10-centimetre wooden bail.

But it did the job.

Though it may have looked slightly out of place, and didn’t light up like some of the fancier options, Pine Lodge’s commitment to getting the game going deserves a clap.

The game wasn’t half-bad either, as the Lodgers bowled Tatura out two runs shy of their total with three balls remaining.

Girls just wanna stop runs

Alyse O’Connell is blazing the trail for female cricketers in the region, proving that girls can do it just as well as the boys.

While a swag of ladies have suited up for D and E-grade duties in Cricket Shepparton this season, O’Connell went one further as she debuted in C-grade.

The Tatura youngster, formerly of Carlton-Brunswick, played an ace hand in Mooroopna’s seven-wicket victory over Central Park-St Brendan’s with a tight bowling spell.

Though she started shakily with a wide, O’Connell announced herself in the world of C-grade with 0-12 from four overs to help restrict the Tigers to 86.

She wasn’t required with the bat as Mooroopna eased its way to the win, but she more than warranted a spot on the team sheet for the next game.

Bye oh bye

Finding yourself at 4-2 is considered a worst-case scenario for most cricket sides.

However, Nagambie’s B-grade contingent somehow managed to make it worse.

The Lakers decided to trot out for a bat after knocking Euroa over for 133 on day one of its two-day clash with the Magpies, but the evening session was about as disastrous as they come for the visitors.

Nagambie sat on 1-1 after the first over with a leg bye the only score on the board.

The next over was a two-wicket maiden.

And six balls later, Nagambie crept to 3-2 after a bye.

The fourth wicket fell without a single run being scored off the bat, with the quartet of ducks making for easy work on the scorer’s behalf.