General News
17 March, 2022
Cats gunning for seventh flag in 11 years
MORTLAKE Cats won through to their 11th grand final appearance in 14 years when they defeated Bookaar at Camperdown Lakes Reserve last Saturday.
MORTLAKE Cats won through to their 11th grand final appearance in 14 years when they defeated Bookaar at Camperdown Lakes Reserve last Saturday.
On a wicket made for batting Bookaar scored a competitive 195 runs, but it wasn’t enough for an imperious Mortlake top order, the Cats chasing down that total with eight wickets in hand in the 43rd over.
Bookaar got off to a strong start with an opening partnership of 58 runs between Eddie Lucas (26) and Simon Baker (47) and were at 2/79 at the mid-point of the innings when Fraser Lucas took the crease.
Lucas, who batted through till the last over of the Pelicans’ innings, made a solid 54 runs as he shepherded his fellow batsmen towards what was looking like a total of 220 or more, but a rash of late wickets from Neil Kelly (4/39) kept a lid on the run-rate through the tail end of the innings.
Mortlake openers Todd Lamont and Corey Rounds began patiently, waiting for the new ball to lose some of its shine, completing that task before Rounds fell for six runs off 33 deliveries in the 11th over.
Will Kain joined Lamont at the crease, bringing a controlled aggression to the game that lifted Mortlake’s run-rate, and the two set about chasing down the Bookaar total in earnest.
The pair amassed a partnership total of 93 runs before Kain (64) was dismissed for lbw at 2/121 with 31 overs remaining.
Isaac Wareham (40 n.o.) came in at second drop, and he and Lamont (70 n.o.) saw out the remainder of the innings in style, making nearly six runs an over to win the game with seven and a half overs to spare.
The win pits the Cats against Heytesbury Rebels in the grand final next week, and Mortlake skipper Todd Robertson said his side were fired up to face the side against whom his side won their last premiership in 2018.
“We’re very excited, we’re looking forward to the challenge Heytesbury are going to give us,” he said.
“We’ve made a lot of changes on and off the field in those two or three years, so it’s a nice reward for effort to make it to this stage, and it’ll be even better if we can get across the line this week.
“Heytesbury are a really well-drilled side, they’re all on the same page, and they all play for one another,” he said.
“They’ll be a more than formidable opponent on the weekend, that’s for sure.”
Robertson said his side would need to perform at a high level in all aspects of the game to overcome the Rebels.
“There’s always room for improvement in our fielding, we could probably scrub up a bit there,” he said.
“But key for us will be getting top order wickets, if we can get a breakthrough or two with the new ball early and manage to get out Simon Harkness, that’ll go a long way towards us winning the game on Saturday.
“He’s the catalyst for their batting, and he’s had a terrific season, so he’ll be a big wicket for us.”
Robertson said the Mortlake batsmen were in good form and would need to continue that this weekend.
“As far as our batting goes, that played out quite well for us on the weekend,” he said.
“Our batsmen were terrific, Will Kain in particular, and while Todd anchored the innings and we all bat around him, Will came in and took all the pressure off him with the aggressive way he batted.
“Credit’s got to go to Corey Rounds as well, he batted through the toughest overs of the day, he was there for his ten overs and wore the shine off the new ball.
“He did his role, all of then played their roles perfectly.”