BLACKFORD’S SUBLIME WEEKEND
GEELONG cricket prodigy Liam Blackford has started his summer of representative cricket in style, crunching almost 200 runs in two digs.
Blackford registered his second career century for the Barwon Rockets yesterday, peeling off 104 from 94 balls against Metro West at Geelong Cricket Ground.
It followed a sublime 94 for Geelong College on Saturday, completing a brilliant weekend with the bat for the rising star.
The knock helped Blackford’s school to victory, chasing down Caulfield Grammar’s 167 in the 35th over, and he repeated the dose in the first match of the under-16 Dowling Shield yesterday. His rapid 104 was the highlight of the day, but his heroics were unable to lift Barwon to victory as Metro West chased down the Rockets’ 207.
“It was super … a really good knock from a bottomage player,” Rockets coach Angus Boyd said.
“He took the game on, backed his skills and after he got to 50 he didn’t take too many risks. He did it quite easily and he was setting up for a really big score.
“A run-a-ball hundred as a 14-year-old … he’s going places.”
Speaking post-match, Blackford said he felt comfortable early in his knock on a typically flat Geelong pitch.
“I got a few away and that took the nerves away. I played how I normally do, played my shots and it came off,” Blackford said.
“I was a bit disappointed to go out on 104. It didn’t help with a middle-order batting collapse, but it’s something to work on. I think once you get to a hundred you’ve got to refocus a bit.”
Blackford chased a halfvolley, nicking to the wicketkeeper, to bring a brilliant innings to a close.
He was the fourth wicket to fall, but the Rockets continued to lose wickets.
In control at 2-135, the home side was all out for 207 on the final ball of the innings.
“After the drinks break in our batting innings, not much went right for the rest of the day,” Boyd said.
“We were 30-40 runs short of what we could’ve easily got. You can bury the game with a score like that, and in the end, we didn’t deserve to get as close as we got.
“But the positive is, not much went right and we were right there at the end.”
Barwon managed to push the game deep, losing on the final ball of the 48th over, but two dropped catches in the dying stages proved costly.
“You expect in the last 10 overs that the group is going to be up for the fight in the field and we dropped off,” Boyd said.
“Whether we lost focus thinking we were going to lose, I don’t know, but those two catches would’ve taken the game deep into the last over. And with how well Josh Garner bowled, we would’ve backed him to get it done in the last over. So it’s disappointing that those catches didn’t stick.”
Garner finished with 0-25 from nine overs.
THE Barwon Rockets’ under-21 side (9-168) went down to Gippsland (173), despite a neat 85 from Lara’s Brad McMaster, while the under-14 Rockets (6-194) downed Metro West (6-167) at Kardinia Park West, with Henry Melville making 65.