Park pushing for finals berth after turnaround

The late-season revival of Collingwood Park has continued as they chalked up a fourth-straight win on Saturday afternoon, this time disposing of rivals Denmark by 27 runs in round 13 of the Albany Cricket Association A-grade competition.

Park lost their first four games of the one-day format and were languishing at the foot of the table, but have emerged as a genuine finals contender with four victories on the trot.

They momentarily moved into the top four and are building real momentum towards the back end of the normal season, but they face Mt Barker, Manypeaks and the Magpies again in a challenging run home.

Batting first at Turf East, Park set a competitive total of 155 after a hard-fought 41 from Nathan Dovey followed by valuable middle order knocks from captain Tim Pyle (48 not out) and Nick Barrow (38).

Barrow and Pyle added 73 runs for the fifth wicket as they helped Park recover from a wobbly start where tweaker Cary Green snared three wickets.

Green finished with 3-33 from his 10 overs after opening the bowling, along with Matt Ellul (1-33 off 10).

Park took regular wickets and never allowed the Magpies innings to gather any real momentum as Ricky Weight made inroads at the top and then quick Ben Grey ripped through the tail.

Jujhar Johal, Ryan Gaerth and Matt Burton all surpassed 20, but none could go on with it as the Magpies were all out for 128, preventing a bonus point win for their opponents by four runs, which could prove decisive later on. Grey (4-21) and Weight (2-20) were the pick of the bowlers for Park.

Meanwhile at Turf West, North County’s finals hopes continued to fade after they were on the end of a nine-wicket defeat against Manypeaks.

Three Bulldogs reached double figures in their disappointing batting innings as they were rolled for 87 as the Peaks bowlers shared the wickets around.

Peaks breezed to a double bonus point win as they made light work of the victory target, reaching it in 16.1 overs as clean strikers Harry Broomhall (32 no) and Aran Tilbury (22) did most of the damage with the bat.

The result pushed Peaks clear in second place while the Bulldogs are down in sixth place with only Royals behind them who they meet in a must-win clash this week.