IT was on for young and old at the Kiewa Cricket Ground as Eskdale claimed their second consecutive District premiership with a 35-run win over Kiewa yesterday.
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They didn’t get a lot of love in the tipping, but the reigning premiers made it two in a row on the back of some brilliant middle order batting.
After winning the toss on Saturday, Eskdale took to a beautiful batting deck in perfect conditions.
They had a tough time of it early, losing three wickets to be precariously placed at 3-27.
Joel Parsons got the reigning premiers rolling, but fell to the leg spin of Jason Bartel for 28, bringing Ben Paton and Rhys Thompson to the crease.
They didn’t look back from there, putting together a 115-run partnership to restore order and put the Mountain Men in the box seat.
Thompson and Paton both fell with the score at 193, giving Kiewa an opportunity to minimise the damage with two new batsmen out in the middle.
It wasn’t to be, with Ben Dower (31), Jamie Baude (19) and Liam Tobin (14) showing some grit in the lower order to push the total higher than Kiewa would have liked to an imposing 8-264.
Jacob Barber was the pick of the bowlers for Kiewa, claiming the key wickets of Baude and Dower on his way to 2-26 from 13 overs.
The ground’s reputation as a batting wicket was certainly justified by the end of the first day, with Robert Barber the only other bowler to take multiple wickets, claiming 2-42.
Shane Streeter and his Kiewa squad were chomping at the bit to get out in the middle and chase down the big total in perfect conditions.
But Eskdale were up to the task, with Haydon Wilson, Ben Dower and Jamie Baude giving the home team’s batsmen nothing to work with.
Andrew Mann was out for a duck early and the scoring dried up, as Eskdale’s pacy trio sent down one dot ball after the other.
After convincingly claiming the minor premiership on the back of a much-lauded batting line-up, Kiewa were simply unable to get the scoreboard ticking with any real consistency.
They were held to just 3-109 after 50 overs, needing a Twenty20 style innings to claim the flag.
Still needing 176 to win, Kiewa’s run rate needed a boost, and Sean Taylor and Kelven Bailey obliged, as the home team started to work the ball to the boundary and push the field back slightly.
With 14 overs to go the minor premiers started to get desperate, with some risky shots narrowly paying off before Bailey was run out in a mix-up with Ben Curphy.
Kiewa fought hard to stay alive, but it was a case of too little, too late, and when Wilson bowled the final over, Eskdale had restricted them to 8-229 and the celebrations erupted.
