An all-round performance the legendary Sir Garfield Sobers would be proud of from Justin Dejong gave West Gambier the license to win at Blue Lake Sports Park on Saturday.
The round 3 one-day fixture against South Gambier was all about DeJong, who started the day with four crucial wickets to restrict the home side to before scoring the first century of the 2021-22 Barber Shield.
The special day for the Roos started before the first ball after captain Richard Crute won the toss and sent Demons in under gloomy skies.
The call worked wonders as Sam Willis opened the floodgates knocking over Dan Loupos before the skipper took charge removing Ryan Kuhl, Adam Kuhl, Steven Easterbrook and Michael Sims cheaply.
Once Connor Prior spun out Ethan Sims, the hosts were struggling to survive at 6/56 at the halfway mark.
Crute revealed he was pleasantly surprised to be in the position after some errors in the field.
“We were actually pretty poor in the field dropping some chances and making a lot of mis-fields, but the way the boys bowled was fantastic,” he said.
“We just tried to hit the correct areas and make them push the scoring rate to create chances to take wickets.”
However, South was not going to surrender and some of its big names rose to the occasion.
Current captain Camron Jorgensen teamed up with his predecessor James Dunn beautifully to resurrect the innings with a 48-run stand.
Their efforts pushed the total past triple figures before Dejong made his first impact beating the defences of Dunn for 34.
In his very next over he removed Jorgensen for 35, but Robert Drenthen loomed large with his slogs over cow corner.
However, the Roos had little to worry about as Dejong cleaned up the tail to restrict the Demons to 132.
With a small target to defend, South came out hard with the new ball, but the solid techniques of West’s openers Jack Geddes and Dejong blunted everything that came their way.
The pair got their eye in before increasing the tempo with Dejong the aggressor.
He continued on his marry way after the loss of Geddes for 21 alongside Before push the Roos to the unbeatable position of 1/100 after 20 overs.
Despite Prior being run out, Jake Blackwell and Sam Willis were also worthy partners for the unbeatable opener as West cruised past the target and eventually to 4/202.
Dejong raised the bat for his maiden century in the 36th before walking off to a standing ovation one over later with exactly half of his team’s score.
Crute was full of praise for his man’s tremendous all-round effort.
“Justin had to bowl in the hardest part of the innings into the breeze and obviously the way he batted was all class,” he said.
“The way the top order batted was brilliant and that was credit to Justin.
“I thought he did not try to over-hit the cricket ball for the first time, so hopefully it sets him up for a big year.”
