The first thing that jumps out at you when you look at Court House’s first innings against Albion on Saturday is the performances of Kyle Gallen, Brad Gander and Farran Lamb.
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But upon closer inspection the story of the innings takes an interesting twist.
Five of the Court House batsmen failed to trouble the scorers, three of them falling for golden ducks.
Somehow in amongst all the carnage, with James Mack and Garry Briggs both on hat-tricks at one point, they managed to post a competitive 208.
That was largely thanks to Gallen (64), Gander (56) and Lamb (43). Ollie Thomas then nabbed 2-12 to have Albion 2-34 in reply.
After losing a couple of early wickets, Gallen and Ben Haire (20) did the leg-work to get Court House in a strong position.
“Kyle batted pretty well - he hits the ball hard,” Gander said.
He smacked seven fours and two sixes in his stay, and held the innings together as they lost 3-8.
After he went, Gander and Lamb got them back on track with a 60-run stand for the seventh wicket.
It was Gander’s best knock for the season but was in his assessment “scratchy”.
“The wicket was pretty slow and low so you had to spend a bit of time to get used to it,” he said.
“I was just trying to find something. Just try and stay out there for a bit with Doogs (Lamb).”
“Farran batted really well as he does. He steadied the ship when we lost a few wickets.”
Standing in for injured skipper Brad Jenkinson, James Mack thought Albion “did alright”, both sides conceding the game is in the balance.
“I don’t think we bowled poorly,” he said.
“There were only four guys that scored runs, which was good.
“200 for 60 overs in the field is good.”
With nine players unavailable for first grade and another handful in second grade, the club made the decision to forfeit the second day of the second grade clash.
Stepping up from second grade and taking the new ball, Mack though Ashley White (3-39) bowled well.
Briggs (3-57) also battled hard, Mack, who himself took 2-29, said.
He bowled 13 overs straight his first spell.
They were effectively a bowler down with Josh Ryan doing his quad in his first spell and unable to bowl more than six overs.
“Ideally it would be great to be none down but we’ll get a few guys back hopefully,” Mack said.
“We just need a few blokes to do what they did and put on a few partnerships.”
