By Gary Caffell
Humbled by Rathkeale College in their Umpire’s Cup senior men’s cricket fixture on Saturday, Lansdowne bounced back to defeat defending champions Greytown at Greytown some 24 hours later.
It was an important success for Lansdowne too as the win took them to the top of the competition table and left Greytown in a battle royal with Rathkeale for the second spot, and a place in the cup final a little further down the track.
Greytown batted first and there were scant signs of momentum in an innings which finished with their score at a disappointing 102.
Just two of their batsmen even made it into double figures with Liam Burling battling through to 20 off 75 balls and Lucien Burt reaching 36 from 69 balls.
Remarkably the one 4 struck by Burling was the only boundary in the entire innings.
The accuracy of the Lansdowne attack was evidenced by stats which showed that only one of their bowlers went at more than 2.10 runs per over.
Hayden Barrett and Jay Macdonald both snared three wickets, Barrett at a cost of 21 runs from his 10 overs and Macdonald after conceding 15 runs from eight overs.
Also impressive were Stefan Hook-Sporry who took 2-11 from nine overs and Drew Macdonald 2-15 from 8.4 overs.
Lansdowne’s batting effort was nothing to write home about either.
They lost six wickets in achieving their target with Choi Jackson continuing to make a decent fist of his promotion to the opener’s role.
His 28 came from 47 balls and included two 4s.
Kieran Te Whare’s unbeaten 21 further down the order was another valuable knock.
His 21 came from 29 balls and he also struck two 4s.
Burt completed a solid all-round effort for Greytown by taking 2-28 from his eight overs while Peter Aiken claimed 2-16 from seven overs.
Short scoreboard: GREYTOWN 102 (Freeman 8, Lyttle 9, Burling 20, Speers 1, Burt 36, Ariell 0, Aiken 7, Evans 0, Freeman 5, Regnault 1, James 0 not out, extras 15; fall of wickets, 11, 21, 25, 55, 61, 86, 87, 96, 102, 102; D Macdonald 8.4-0-15-2, Barrett 10-2-21-3, Hook-Sporry 9-4-11-2; Patel 10-0-37-0, J Macdonald 8-3-15-3) lost to LANSDOWNE 103-6 ( Jackson 28, J Macdonald 10, Dingle 12, B Price 16, D Price 2, Te Whare 21 not out, Dennes-Wilson 3, Patel 0 not out, extras 11; fall of wickets, 38, 56, 58, 70, 87. 96; James 4-1-17-0, Burt 8-0-28-2, Burling 4-1-17-0, Aiken 7-2-16-2, Speers 7.3-1-24-1) by four wickets.
