by Sam Debenham, reprinted with permission by the author

ST PAT’S Old Boys have survived their first major speed hump of the 2012-13 Commonwealth Bank Cup to register a narrow but gutsy win over premiers ORC at Morse Park 1 on Saturday.

The result gives them three wins from as many matches in a dream start to the Bathurst District Cricket Association first grade competition.

The defending champions now find themselves winless after three rounds of the competition, albeit one of those rounds having been a bye, and they will lament a major missed opportunity on Saturday. The Tigers were dismissed for 105, 14 short of Pats Old Boys’ 119, and in truth they were lucky to get as close as they did after a late rally from Mick Fardon gave them an outside chance of victory.

Earlier Matt Fearnley picked up his second four-wicket haul in as many games to run through ORC’s top order and reduce them to 6-51. “It is definitely a huge confidence boost to win when defending such a small target,” Fearnley said.

“We were obviously pretty disappointed with our total and the fact we didn’t bat out our overs but we went out there knowing we had to bowl stump to stump. “ORC bowled well, we knew we had to match that to be a chance.”

SPOB captain Nathan Dennis won the toss and elected to bat on what looked like a hard and flat pitch but his side was soon in trouble at 2-22 after Tim McKinnon (2-17) removed Stuart Hodges (four) and Shane Broes (six).

Jared Rowe (21) and Adam Ryan steadied things before Rowe was bowled by Jacob Bognuda, and with Dennis coming to the crease the next period of play was set to prove critical. Dennis and Ryan looked good for a big partnership before Ryan fell for 34 and when Dennis was bowled by Bognuda for 17 a few overs later ORC were in with a chance to finish SPOB off for a modest total.

They managed to do that, claiming the final seven wickets for just 40 runs, though ultimately a 14-run stand between Matt Fearnley (five) and George Douehi (14 not out) would prove critical. Bognuda finished with 3-32 from his eight while Sam Debenham claimed 5-24 from 7.2, taking advantage of his teammates’ early work to clean up the tail.

Knowing that a good start to their chase would be able to kill the game off reasonably early, ORC weren’t able to use that to their advantage and were in early trouble at 2-11 with openers Adam Bromfield (nought) and Tim Halloran (three) back in the sheds.

In-form skipper Brendan Inwood was perhaps a little unlucky after surviving a leg-before appeal only to fall out of his crease as wicketkeeper Josh Knox threw the stumps down a few seconds after the delivery. Evan Jones (three) departed in his first match against his old team and at 4-22 the premiers were in real strife.

Wickets continued to tumble and when Myles Emanuel went for nine, SPOB were well and truly in the driver’s seat.

Wayne Sellers and Sam Debenham each made 16 and briefly got things back on track but both fell within the space of four deliveries, and whe Tim McKinnon fell to Scott Traves (3-21) first ball, the match looked over at 9-73.

Bognuda survived a huge leg-before shout early in his innings and Fardon proceeded to tee off at the other end, and when the target got to less than 20 Dennis was forced to go to a fifth bowler for the first time in the innings.

He gambled on Broes’ off-spin and though Fardon fancied his chances of some lusty blows to bring the target closer, he only succeeded in picking out Douehi on the long-off boundary and fell for 31.
Fearnley finished with 4-15 to take the bowling honours for SPOB.

“We were surprised that ORC were only on 55 or so at drinks, and they were six down at that stage and at that point we knew we were a huge chance, we just went back out there knowing we had to go for it and really put the pressure on,” Fearnley said.

“When Mick Fardon was starting to tee off there were a few nerves, we dropped him once or twice and it looked like he could get them home but we managed to get over the line.”