By Justin Flynn
Newtown & Chilwell skipper Dylan Hodge faces a tough task to squeeze in two key batters to his top of the ladder side this week.
Paddy McKenna and Chay Deary are available to slot back into the Two Blues line-up that easily chased down Highton’s 9/216 on Saturday.
However, Hodge had scans on an injured knee on Monday and may miss some games after the gun all-rounder played a pivotal role in the win.
When Highton dangerman Greg Willows (35) departed with the score at 5/70, Mekhi Farr (50) and Tejas Gupta (46) resurrected the innings to give Highton a defendable total.
Opening bowlers Hodge and Jorden Lewis picked up two wickets and Noah Guida kept things tight with 1/36 off 10 overs.
“It was good to have the flexibility for him (Guida) to be our fifth-change bowler,” Hodge said.
“He was our most consistent bowler by a long way on the weekend. So to have the flexibility to go to him and then Sam Allen, we’ve got Patty McKenna to come back into our team. We’ve got so many options to go to, which in white-ball cricket, having the flexibility is very handy.
“I think the wicket got a bit better as the innings went on, but then Farr and Gupta, they both play very differently, so to try and have bowling and fielding plans for two batsmen that score in two different areas, it was probably a bit of a challenge for us. It probably took us a little bit longer to adapt than it should have and we put down a couple of chances as well.”
Newtown & Chilwell then knocked over the runs inside 38 overs, thanks largely to a superb 92 off 101 deliveries from Hodge and a rapid unbeaten 60 off 56 from Lachie Sperling. Ronnie McKenna played a valuable hand of 24 from 26 balls to share in a 72-run stand for the second wicket with Hodge.
“We’ve spent our whole preseason spending a lot of time on working on our strengths for what we can try and do during a game so it is nice when it comes off at the top,” Hodge said.
“It was good to spend some time out there, but to bat with guys like Lachie and Ronnie McKenna it gives you another calm head to make sure we’re going through the right gears. Once you get ahead of the run rate on a pretty good wicket that allows us to control the game from there. It would have been nice for us to finish it off with a couple more wickets in the shed. We lost a couple late, but I think if you can get ahead of the run rate in the shorter format game, it allows you to control the innings a little bit more.”
Selection looms as a tough assignment for this week’s clash against Grovedale.
“We’ve got a couple of inclusions for availability with Paddy McKenna and Chay Deary coming back in, which only strengthens our batting again,” Hodge said.
“So we’ve got a good problem to have at the moment. Our selections are getting quite tough to pick a team because we’ve got a lot of guys training hard and putting results up on a Saturday, so no doubt Grovey, they’re in good form as well so I think it’ll be a pretty good battle.”
Hodge said he hurt his knee when on about 70 during his innings, but was hoping the scans clear him of any structural damage.
ST JOSEPH’S put in an even team effort to defeat St Peters. Joeys made 162 batting first with Joshua Sorgiovanni’s 6/21 the highlight of the innings for St Peters. St Peters was all out for 152 in reply with four run outs proving costly and a superb spell from Ryan Simmonds, who took 2/12 from 10 immaculate overs.
THERE was no play in the East Belmont vs South Barwon and Grovedale vs North Geelong games due to heavy rain on Friday.
