North Sportsman’s may have endured a slow start to the 2021-22 summer of cricket, but it has just sent a huge message of intent after stealing its round 5 Hoggies Wines Barber Shield clash from East Gambier’s lap on Saturday.
Chasing 212 for victory on home turf the Bulldogs held all the aces at 1/145 when Kev Thomson and Steven Cameron were cruising to half centuries.
But the Tigers’ bowling attack showed it had lost none of its stripes by removing the two set batters and steaming through the lower order to score a memorable seven-run win in the last over of the day.
North captain Nick McInerney played a vital role collecting three wickets and thought many times he was going to finish on the wrong side of the result.
“It was a great win because it did not look like it was going to pan out that way for a lot of the day,” he said.
“We took the pace out of the game with Michael (Johnston) through the middle and we just lifted in the field around the tea break to dry them up a bit.
“We felt if we could do that we something could turn our way which it did, but we had to work hard for it.
“We hold onto a belief that we are never out of the game until it is over and Saturday solidified that.”
The started off in ominous fashion as aggressive East openers Thomson and Leigh Von Duve laid the foundations to the run chase.
The pair enjoyed pace on the new ball and put 62 runs on the board within the first hour.
Their work forced McInerney to introduce the spin of Elliott Fisher and his right-arm orthodox brought about the dismissal of Von Duve.
The opener was trapped lbw for 38 and the Tigers hoped it would turn their fortunes around.
However, the game turned into a war of attrition and East slowly landed some killer blows.
Some tense one-on-one battles emerged as spin twins Fisher and Michael Johnston bowled unchanged for more than 30 overs at Thomson and his new partner Steven Cameron.
The righthand-lefthand combination worked together to keep the spinners on their toes and steadily pushed the Bulldogs to a position of apparent safety.
Thomson (55) and Cameron (59) were in cruise mode putting the home side within 66 runs of victory with 20 overs and nine wickets remaining.
However, McInereny brought back the pace of Tim Young and the game was turned on its head.
After working over Thomson for six overs, Young induced a false stroke out of the batter to break the 83-run union.
The big wicket opened the floodgates for the visitors as they went to work searching for an unlikely win after East looked set for victory with 10 overs to go.
Youngster Isaac Mulraney took a wicket he will never forget beating the bat of Dion Stratford, while Johnston was rightly rewarded for his back-breaking work dismissing Cameron at a critical moment.
More big names such as Emerson Marks, Alex Hentschke and Travis Younghusband departed cheaply and suddenly a classic was unfolding.
With stumps approaching the pressure compiled on both sides and East’s hopes were on the shoulders of Ben Hentchke.
As the wickets tumbled Hentschke remained calm to help the Bulldogs claw to within seven runs of victory with just one wicket in hand for the 80th and final over.
After bowling 31 back-to-back overs, Johnston was replaced by Young and Hentshcke got a quick single off the first ball which exposed number 11 Liam Turley, who kept out two balls until a disastrous run out crushed East’s dreams.
McInerney said the win came at a vital time for the Tigers which can savour the success through the Christmas break.
“It is nice to head into Christmas with the win and not sit bottom of the ladder, but we have done it before and pride ourselves on playing our best at the right time of the year,” he said.
“The win can give us a great experience to draw from in finals and it could have been very different.”
