Lions having a ball
ENTERPRISING batting from Andrew Baars (54 not out) and Matt Lineker (51), coupled with a damaging bowling performance a day earlier, propelled East Belmont to a comprehensive eightwicket semi-final win over reigning premier Grovedale.
Despite the absence of spearhead David Lineen, English paceman Alex Willerton (3-30), along with seamers Dylan McMahon (2-23) and Zac Walter (2-17) swept through the Tigers for just 121.
“That bowling is as good as any I’ve seen from our seamers, they were really disciplined and bowled some good balls in there to get wickets,” Lions’ coach Chris Williams said. “And Alex bowled really well, you don’t know the influence at the other end when someone is bowling that quick.
“It’s exciting, it’s what you set out to do at the start of the year, we couldn’t have put it together any better than we did.”
Five Tigers reached double figures, but it was only Gareth Yelland that got going with an innings high 36 from 66 balls.
“We just weren’t able to counteract everything that East Belmont threw at us,” Grovedale captain-coach Barry Tsitas said.
“They bowled really well, as we expected they would, and we probably had our worst day of the year.”
The Lions were forced to the crease for 27 overs on Saturday and wasted no time in the chase racing to 1-88 at stumps.
Despite losing Sean O’Neill (11) at 25, the union of Lineker and Baars produced a rapidfire 88-run stand that straddled the two days, ultimately steering the Lions to 2-122.
“You really like to get those partnerships going at the top to take the sting out of the game,” Williams said.
“Matt Lineker took the game away from them with the speed with which he scored.
“It was a fast and bouncy wicket and the batsmen that played aggressively got value.”