VTCA: Taylor Lakes make it a perfect six on ‘a great day’

Taylors Lakes cricket club has dined out on one of its most successful days, with all six Lions teams winning.

Incredibly, the top three sides won outright, a feat that may never been achieved before in the club’s history.

“It was a great day,” Lions opening bowler and assistant coach Luke Harrison told the Weekly.

“We don’t think it has happened before in the club’s history and we’ll try to find out but I don’t know how you go about getting those sorts of records.

“It’s pretty rare for the top two teams to win outright, let alone the top three.”

The Lions’ First had a sting in their tail after a disappointing loss on the opening round of north A1 division.

Sunshine Druids were the unfortunate victims of the backlash as the Lions had first-innings points wrapped up on day one and completed the demolition job on Saturday to win by an innings and 40 runs.

“It was good to bounce back,” Harrison said. “That’s the standard we’ve set and we have to make sure we front up like that each week.”

The Druids were bowled out for 126 on day one and the response from the Lions was swift and calculated. They passed the target before stumps and went on to declare on 7-269, a lead of 143.

The runs were spread around, with opener Frank Buttigieg (52) and middle-order batsmen Glen Jones (49), Adam Brodie (60), Paul Thomas (44) and Michael Kelliher (28no) getting among it.

The Druids mustered only 93 in their second dig, medium-pacer Rashid Bashir taking 5-23 to go with his 3-1 in the first innings.

“He’s in really good form,” Harrison said of Bashir. “He’s a smart bowler. He understands the game really well.”

St Andrews (60 and 64) has made a miserable start to life in north A1 with back-to-back losses, the latest by an innings and 105 against Craigieburn (229).

In other grades, Keilor’s (115 and 119) woes in senior division were compounded in an outright loss to Hoppers Crossing (8-213dec).

Keilor Park (9-255dec) and Royal Park/Brunswick (0-14) settled on a draw in north division after no play was possible on day two.

 

Mohsin Abbas unleashed 12 fours and four sixes to light up west B1 in making 96 for Sunshine Heights (306) in a thumping victory over Kingsville Baptists (82 and 3-52).