Railways prove too strong

Railways have overcome a plucky 10-man North County side courtesy of a damaging bowling performance to record a 33-run victory at Tigerland on Saturday.

Despite being down a player for the whole match against the ladder leaders, a spirited effort with the ball wasn’t enough to get County over the line as they could only manage 95 runs in response to the Tigers’ 128.

The Tigers won the toss and elected to bat, but by the end of the second over it was County in control with opening bowlers Harry Broomhall and Graham Weinert both striking to leave the Tigers at 2-2. Nathan Crudeli soon followed to make it 3-14 before captain Zane Marwick and Matt Walters looked to steady the ship as they compiled 42 runs for the fourth wicket.

Marwick, who top scored with 43 runs, was bowled by veteran seamer Craig Tonkin and when Walters went shortly after the Tigers were sitting precariously at 5-62. Matt Wolfe and Tim Edmunds again went about putting stability into the Tigers’ innings and appeared to be doing just that until Tonkin struck again to dismiss Wolfe before Edmunds was run out with the score at 7-103.

The remaining wickets fell with relative ease as the Tigers finished their innings at 128 runs, their second lowest score of the season.

An impressive bowling performance was needed from the Tigers to get over the line and Crudeli got them off to a perfect start with the wicket of Aaron Williams in the first over.

Tonkin was out four overs later when Jeremy Wood was brought into the bowling attack and Neil Ferreira went not long after with County sitting at 3-25.

A partnership seemed to be forming between Broomhall and Gary McGlade, however Broomhall gave Wood his second wicket when he flipped a ball up to Crudeli at point.

Another brief stand between Layton Taylor and McGlade gave County a breath of hope, but Taylor fell to Crudeli and then McGlade was bowled by Edmunds to leave the score at 6-86. Playing with only 10 players, County’s tail order went cheaply as the Tigers finished off to bowl them out for 95 runs to claim a 33-run victory.

Crudeli was the pick of the bowlers with figures of 4-22 off seven overs.