On a scorching day at Kyabram Recreation Reserve, the Redbacks won the toss and elected to bat in what promised to be a scintillating encounter between two sides that will be hoping to feature in March.
Katandra made a positive start, making inroads into Kyabram’s batting line-up.
An early run-out and wickets to Hadleigh Sirett and Seth Westley meant the Redbacks sat on 3-49 after 13.4 overs.
However, Kyabram star Kyle Mueller came to the crease and started scoring immediately, guiding Corey Hickford for a boundary off his first rock.
The Redbacks’ master-blaster continued at a steady rate, putting the Eagles on the backfoot with his scoring prowess.
Mueller has been a man on a mission this season, coming into this match he had scored two hundreds and three 50s from his first six innings for a total of 370 runs at an average of 123.33.
Kyabram player-coach Jackson McLay said it had been a joy to watch Mueller go about his business this season.
“(Mueller) is in a rich vein of form and he is scoring some good runs,” McLay said.
“It is a credit to him at the moment as he is in the middle of a harvest, so he is doing huge days at the moment and probably not getting much sleep.
“To be able to walk out and hit the first ball for four out of the middle of the bat and to continue the incredible form he has been in (is impressive).
“Cade (Mueller’s brother) is in the same boat working massive hours, I thought his innings was good as he came out and backed himself (on Saturday).
“Those two boys are going pretty good.”
Cade (33 runs off 46 balls) and Kyle (77 off 63) helped rocket the Redbacks towards their final total of 222.
McLay said although he would have taken that score at the start of the day, the fact Kyabram was bowled out in the 57th over meant his side left a lot of runs on the table.
“It probably wasn’t the easiest of pitches to bat on,” he said.
“All our batters said that they didn’t feel in, so it is probably credit to the two Mueller boys that they were able to put on 98 in pretty quick fashion.
“We probably handed them quite a few wickets that we just didn’t need to, but we scored at a pretty good clip to get to 222 off 57 overs.
“It would have been nice to have a few boys hang around and grind out a bit longer, if we had got close to the 80 overs we would have got close to 300, so there is room for improvement there.”
THE GAME
Kyabram 222 (Kyle Mueller 77, Cade Mueller 33, Hadleigh Sirett 4-32) lead Katandra 2-28 (Bailey Simpson 12*, Ben Clurey 10, Louis Sabbagh-Holt 1-1)
Given they were bowled out with a third of the day’s play left, the Redbacks were given 20 overs to try and crack their way into Katandra’s batting line-up.
The Eagles’ openers Ben Pedretti and Ben Clurey withstood the pressure early as the pair looked to shut the Redbacks bowlers out.
However, Clurey lost his wicket at the end of the seventh over to Charlie McLay, before Pedretti was brought undone by some Louis Sabbagh-Holt spin.
The Eagles finished the day on 2-28 trailing the Redbacks by 194 heading into day two on Saturday.
McLay said if his bowlers continued to perform this weekend, the Redbacks should find victory.
“The way we bowled yesterday afternoon for that last hour, across 20 overs I can probably count the bad balls on one hand,” he said.
“That is a much-improved effort with the ball from last week.
“Bowling just outside of off stump, keeping it nice and tight, if we can do that we know scoring will be really hard on our ground if we are disciplined.”
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