Echuca rolled Rochester by 110 runs, a team that had been in red-hot form in the opening two games of the season before the batting line-up failed to sizzle on Saturday.
Winning the toss and batting first on its home pitch, Echuca got off the mark immediately, with Curtis Townrow smashing 38 runs from 27 deliveries.
Dylan Cuttriss and Daniel Major partnered to get Rochester’s first breakthrough, with Townrow caught behind off the former’s delivery.
With Echuca sitting 1-48, the side soon lost their next three wickets for 23 runs before Hinks and Beard rose to the task.
Hinks put together a mature innings at number three, scoring 71 runs, while Beard provided extra firepower as the sixth batter to get a quick 88 runs of 79 balls, including 13 boundaries.
“Matt batted really well,” Beard said. “He came out after we’d lost two wickets in a row quickly.
“He got us through that tough period, and as the innings went on, he was able to push us forward. It was the perfect innings from a number three.
Beard added his role was to try and take the team deep into the innings, with Echuca able to bat out the full 45 overs.
“We both wanted to still be there at the 40-over mark, which we were, and by doing that we gave ourselves a pretty good platform to score pretty heavily at the back end.”
Beard and Hinks were eventually dismissed within a run of each other, as Adam Jones (two runs) and Chris Hinks (five) batted out the remaining balls to get Echuca to 6-232.
Switching to the field, a collective effort from Rylea Jones (3-20), Chris Hinks (2-17) and Beard (2-8) saw Rochester’s usual stars fall quite easily.
The early breakthrough of opening batter Blake Evans (for 1-4) was later followed by the dismissal of in-form Rochester captain Sean Williams for a mere 17 runs.
“We felt five or six of Rochester’s really good batsmen are all quite attacking batters,” Beard said.
“So if we could tie them down, and build a bit of pressure, we thought we could get them out, which it kind of did work that way.”
Opening batter Daniel Major topped the scoring for Rochester, though Echuca eventually unravelled the Tigers’ line-up for 9-122 in 35 overs.
Goulburn Murray Cricket’s A-grade teams will switch from the one-day contests of the past three weeks to a two-day contest from Saturday, with Echuca set to battle Cooma.
Beard said a change of mindset was needed for the longer format game, with his team’s preparations to begin at Tuesday night’s training.
“It’s obviously a challenge, and a lot is the mindset,” he said.
“We’ll work on it throughout the week, and making sure we’re not as stressed with the bat, and making sure we’re batting the overs.
“That’s the thing in any format, if you bat your overs, you’re a good chance to make a good total.”
Player of the match
Echuca captain Taylor Beard led from the front on Saturday, doing his part with both bat and ball. Beard took to the crease to put 88 runs on the board from 79 deliveries, before following up in attack with 2-8 from four overs.
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