LION FAST OUT OF THE BLOCKS
EAST Belmont’s premiership defence has opened in ideal fashion, spearheaded by an electrifying introductory spell of fast bowling from David Lineen.
The Lions firebrand claimed the scalps of boom recruit Jordan Moran (1), Luke Ford (0) and Tobias Hogg (2) to have the Tigers reeling at 4-25.
“There was bounce in the wicket early and there were a couple of wickets from either hook shots or off the shoulder of the bat,” Lions coach Chris Williams said.
“It probably shows that he’s probably got that rhythm that he was missing a bit last year.”
It was no surprise when the fightback came, orchestrated initially by the ever-reliable Gareth Yelland (31) and Adam Korth (22), before James Fisher (45 not out) pushed the total to a potentially awkward tally of 149.
While Lineen finished with 3-19, the slow bowling of Williams (3-35), Matt Lineker (2-18) and Tom Elliot, despite not taking a wicket, kept the brakes on the visitors’ scoring.
“It’s one of those ones where if you can get off to a good start without losing too many wickets you’re a good chance and that’s what we had again with Sean O’Neill (39) and Andrew Baars (34),” Williams said.
“Grovedale is a really strong club, with a lot of resilient players who can take games really deep.
“They have a habit of pinching those ones, so we were happy to hold on there.”
East Belmont was buoyed by the return of Becker Nguyen and he did not disappoint with an unbeaten 29.
“Coming back from ACL surgery, that’s the first live hit he’s had for 18 months,” Williams said.
“He just controlled it at the end and it was an invaluable knock.
“We were meant to hide him in the field, but he was diving around like he normally does.”
Grovedale skipper Barry Tsitas was outstanding with the ball, securing wickets at regular intervals to reap the best figures of the match with 5-34 from his 10 overs.