NICHOLS Point and Irymple are the only undefeated sides in the Sunraysia Cricket Association (SCA) after an enthralling round of matches on Saturday.
In a history-making weekend, two Twenty20 games were played on the one day and the fixture change has been hailed a huge success by clubs and officials.
Nichols Point coach Shaun Mathews praised the SCA board for having the courage to make changes to this season’s format.
Mathews believes it has breathed new life into the competition.
“Absolutley loved it – Farls (Andrew Fairlie) has done a brilliant job with the fixture,” Mathews said.
Nichols Point have been touted by many as this season’s big improvers and they showed why on the weekend with two outstanding performances against Merbein South and highly fancied Workers Gol Gol.
Their win over Workers in the second of Saturday’s two matches was one of the club’s best in recent times and has given Mathews plenty of confidence.
“The boys are doing all the right things at the moment,” Mathews said yesterday.
“Everyone is doing their part.”
Batting first, Nichols Point were on the attack early.
Skipper Brad Thomas led from the front with 48 at the top of the order, but he had plenty of support from Dale Chappell (16), Glen Bridson (27), Daniel Chapman (17) and Kaushik Aphale (23) as the home posted 6/150 off their 20 overs.
Needing more than seven runs an over, Workers didn’t waste any time getting on the attack with Wade Hancock at his brilliant best. He smashed 69 off 51 balls and, for a while, it looked like he was going to steer his side to an unlikely victory.
But when he edged one through to keeper Bridson off the bowling of Nelson Mensforth, Workers’ were in trouble, much to the relief of Mathews.
“It was one of the closest matches I’ve been involved in,” Mathews said.
“It got pretty stressful when Wade (Hancock) was hitting it where he liked.”
Mathews said it was always good to get early wins, but believed they still had plenty of improvement.
“Our fielding still needs improving, but we are working on that every week,” Mathews said.
“It would be great to grab a couple more wins before the two-day games start, but we are just taking it one game at time.”
Mensforth was the pick of Nichols Point’s bowlers finishing with 3/23 off his four overs as Workers finished their allotted 20 overs 6/146 with Joshua Deren (35) and Ben McPhee (20) handy contributors with the bat.
In Nichols Point’s earlier match they proved too strong for Merbein South in a high-scoring encounter.
The Pointers won the toss and elected to bat with Aphale scoring a stylish 40 off 44 balls and Mathews chipping in with a handy 27 as the Pointers reached 5/124 off their 20 overs.
In reply, the Saints managed 4/112 with Ethan Gray unbeaten on 30 and Mark White also not out on 26.
The pick of Nichols Point bowlers was Mathews with 2/10 off four overs, while veteran Shane Trinick was the Saints best with the ball (1/11).
