While relieved to get his side’s first win of the Geelong Cricket Association Division 1 season, Newtown & Chilwell captain Lachie Sperling insists the club is playing for the long term.
The Two Blues knocked off St Joseph’s in round 7 to finally break through on the wins column, but with a young group, Sperling said the club also has one eye on the future.
“I think we’ve had five or six debutantes this year and they’re all in that 18-, 19-year-old age bracket, so exposing them to GCA cricket and seeing what they need to do to get to that level,” he said.
“It’s been good getting games into them and seeing that they’re learning on the job quickly. It’s obviously exciting for the club having lots of young blokes in the twos so I’m sure there will be plenty more opportunities for the young lads that are performing well.
“It will help set us up long term as well if we can get them exposed to the level quicker.”
The Two Blues limited Joeys to 224 on day one despite a blistering 135 from Zane Keighran.
“He hit him everywhere,” Sperling said.
“You can tell he’s a class above. Obviously, if you’ve been opening the batting in Melbourne Premier, you’re a good player.
“I thought we did well to restrict them to 220.”
Pace bowler Nick Burke took 4/56 from 17 overs and Sperling took 3/49 from 17.
“He (Burke) charged in all day and bowled maybe close to 20 overs,” Sperling said.
“And his first over and his 20th over with similar speeds. It was really good for his confidence, too.”
Newtown & Chilwell lost opener Pat McKenna late on the first day and was 5/71 on Saturday with St Joseph’s quick Austin Humphrey grabbing the first four wickets.
Sperling joined Nick Keast at the crease still with plenty of work to do, but they immediately went to work and it paid off with a 130-run partnership.
Keast fell for a counter punching 88 from 117 deliveries.
“He’s done lots of work behind the scenes,” Sperling said.
“He hasn’t had the rewards in previous games, but it was good to see him get a few runs for us. He made runs in the T20 during the week. He got an 80-odd and a 40 as well.
“So he’s been scoring runs, but it was good to see him get a good score on Saturday and get us home.”
With 25 runs still to get, Haydn Burke joined his skipper and played solidly to get the scores level before Sperling tried to finish the game, but got caught for 66 off 74 balls. Burke remained not out on 18 from 25 balls.
Sperling said the message to his new batting partner was simple.
“It was pretty simple because they were obviously going to try and strangle him and bring the field up and get some catches around his eye line,” he said.
“So pretty much it was just if you get a ball that’s in your zone to score, try and score from it. And with the field being a bit more attacking, he got a couple of balls that he was able to put away.
“He was pretty calm under pressure. He’s made a couple of good knocks this year like that.”
EAST Belmont replaced North Geelong at the top of the ladder with a big win led by a strong batting performance.
Chasing the Magpies’ 150 all out, East Belmont called the game at 5/250 when Luke Inglis brought up his century.
Inglis was 101 from 188 deliveries at the declaration and apart from round 1 when he made one, had scores of 46, 34, 95 and 57 leading into the game. Devon Winsall was 47 not out from 52 balls.
SOUTH Barwon resumed at 8/262 and was 9/279 at compulsory closure against Lara.
Lara was 2/9, but fought back through Vishesh Malhotra (63), who dropped down from opening to No 5 in the batting order, and Kaden Marum (61).
Sydney Ray stepped in with his leg-spin and took 5/65 to have Lara all out for 206.
GROVEDALE defeated St Peters by 201 runs with paceman Sam Coutts starring.
The Tigers took their overnight score of 6/234 to 259 all out, but nobody would have predicted the carnage that was about to take place.
Coutts took 7/15 and new-ball partner Tom Smith 3/18 to have the shellshocked Saints all out for 58.
Only Luke Ford (31 not out) offered resistance with an amazing seven batters making ducks.
