General News
10 February, 2022
Kain century headlines Cats win
MATURITY and aggression were the key ingredients of Mortlake batsman Will Kain’s match-winning century against Noorat last Saturday.
MATURITY and aggression were the key ingredients of Mortlake batsman Will Kain’s match-winning century against Noorat last Saturday.
The Cats’ number three scored 107 from 141 balls for his first division one century, and his 119-run partnership with fellow youngster Jack Lehmann (60) gave his side every chance to win.
The Cats’ bowlers took that chance, restricting an excellent Noorat batting line-up to 8/237, 14 runs shy of Mortlake’s 6/251, despite the best efforts of Steamrollers captain Gus Bourke (80) and third drop Stephen O’Connor (64).
Mortlake skipper Todd Robertson took 3/52 with the ball and received support from Lehmann (2/53) and Neil Kelly (1/48).
Veteran pair Clinton Baker (0/34) and Todd Lamont (0/25) took no wickets, but were the most economical of the Mortlake bowling attack.
Lower order batsman Josh Jewell also made a contribution at the crease at the tail-end of Mortlake’s innings, scoring a significant 20 runs from five balls in the 14-run victory.
Robertson praised both sides, and said his team’s experience may have been the deciding factor on the day.
“The ground was really quick, and they had (Jacob) Fishwick and Gus Bourke put on a really good partnership, then Stephen O’Connor got in there and made batting look easy,” he said.
“It was a high-scoring game, tough conditions in warm weather, and Noorat have two or three players who have the capability to win games off their own bat, so it was good to sneak home with the win.”
Robertson said getting a big score on the board set up Mortlake’s win, emphasising his young batsmen’s partnership.
“Will Kain’s a naturally aggressive batsman at the top of the order, so he’s a bit of a wildcard for us, but he’s started to show a lot of maturity with how he constructs his innings now,” he said.
“He’s starting to go on and turn his 40s and 50s into 80s, and now 100 on the weekend.
Both him and Jack Lehmann have shown they’ve come a long way with how they’ve batted the last two or three weeks.”
Noorat lost their openers quickly once the run chase began, but Fishwick and Bourke change the tone of the game with a 55-run partnership.
When Fishwick fell at 3/81 he was replaced by O’Connor, and he and Bourke put on another 93 runs before the latter was caught at long-off.
“We had a heavily packed off-side for Gus, and he was still finding gaps, it was just one of those innings where he was on song, everything found the middle of the bat and then the gaps,” Robertson said.
“Their run-rate had crept up to eight, nine, 10 an over, but then we started trying to contain the runs.
“We put the field out, and it was their undoing, and once we removed Gus we thought we were in with a real good chance to hold them off.”
Morlake maintains a two-game lead over Heytesbury at the top of the table, and travels to face an unsteady Terang this weekend, but Robertson is taking nothing for granted.
“It’s another good challenge for us at Terang, again (like Noorat), they’ve got batsmen that can take games away from you,” he said.
“We want to bat as many overs as we can on the turf, get a good feel for it before finals.
“We’ll have to be on our game to make sure we notch up another win.”