Westlake prove too strong for King’s

A three-year unbeaten run against Westlake Boy’s High finally came to an end on Saturday in Round 3 of the Premier Cricket Competition. In the past three years King’s thrived on the talent of the likes of Nathan Robinson, Dimithri Gallage, Muhammad Abbas, Cory Dickson, Louis Anderson, Toby Irvine, Max Chaplin, Nick Tapper, Karl Wallace, etc but the 2023 edition is still finding its way in this tough competition. There were small signs of improvement on Saturday but not enough to stop a rampant Westlake Boy’s who were hungry to reverse three years of dominance by the home team.

King’s won the toss and inserted the opposition in to bat on a cloudy day, with rain threatening. The match got underway an hour late. Three pace bowlers were involved with the first eight overs as Finn Priddy struggled to get his line right. James Bamford, who replaced him, had similar problems. Liam Denny was the best of the early attack, conceding just eleven runs from five overs. The spinners – Justin Nori, Samar Singh and James Nelson bowled the bulk of the middle overs. Singh was the most impressive spinner with Nori not far behind. These two were instrumental in restricting the opposition to below 3 RPO from the 8^th to the 33^rd over. Having lost just 4 wickets at that point, Westlake showed their batting depth by gradually increasing the run rate in the final 10 overs to post a not-too-challenging 196 runs.

Chasing four runs an over, should have been achievable by the King’s batters but both openers departed in each of the first two overs. King’s were rocked when James Nelson was beaten in the 9^th over with the score on 18/3. Liam Denny was the next LBW victim, out without scoring and King’s were now in distress at 22/4 in the 10^th over. With lots of batting to come, King’s still could go the distance and the rebuild began with the inform James Bamford joining Morgan Tapper. They weathered the storm and gradually built a blossoming partnership, which reached 53 runs when Tapper was bowled for a valuable 23 runs. Another 50-run partnership was required, with plenty of overs remaining but no one showed the necessary resilience to help Bamford take King’s to victory. Wickets fell rapidly with the lower-middle order missing out on a great opportunity to show some fight. Tim Hamilton, batting at No. 10 was 10 not out and showed that he deserves to move up the order as he is a good striker of the ball. King’s were dismissed for a disappointing 134 runs in the 46^th over to lose by 62 runs.

King’s lose by 62 runs