A2 clash abandoned as tearaway Tucker rips up pitch

SUSPECTED rain damage has caused Portarlington’s BPCA A2 clash with Collendina to become a one-day game after part of the synthetic pitch was ripped up at the weekend.

Collendina bowler Sam Tucker was in the midst of bowling his fifth over at Ron Evans Oval on day one of the match when part of the pitch ripped under his foot.

The affected part was flattened out and eventually a square was cut out to try to continue play, however it was deemed “unplayable and became a trip hazard”.

“As his (Tucker) foot landed, (it) just ripped the pitch. Tried to keep bowling, but apparently it just kept on tearing each time,” Portarlington president Mark Tilders said.

“We suspect because of all the recent rain, it looks like water may have got under it and that end of the pitch was just lifting up.”

Tilders said if the pitch could be repaired during the week then they would proceed with play there, however they might run out of time.

“We’ll go back to one-day conditions (this week) because I think Collendina only bowled 16 overs, my belief is they need to complete 25,” he said.

“So we’re working with the league at the moment to see if we might be able to find a vacant ground somewhere else in the competition to play a onedayer next week.

“We’ve got the council to come down to have a look at it and see what they might be able to do in regards to repairs.

“I would suspect that we’d probably need to rip up that whole half of the pitch … which obviously means that we’d probably have to replace the whole lot because you can’t have one half of the pitch brand new synthetic and the other half three years old.”