Busy festive period for cricket

It has been a big couple of weeks for local cricket headlined by East Gambier’s successful defence of its T20 title with a strong performance in the grand final against West Gambier and the Under 15 Mount Gambier & District Cricket Association team also mounting a successful title defence of their Horsham Country Week title.

Mount Gambier dominated the final, scoring 4/229 and dismissing Hamilton for 176.

Ryder Lindner (pictured) was named man of the match in the title decider on the back of an unbeaten 73 with the bat and 3/23 with the ball.

Jagger Geary’s 71 and Kobi Maxwell’s 42 were also pivotal in the final wash up.

East Gambier’s T20 title defence almost came unstuck in a tense semi final with the reigning champs only scoring the winning runs against Penola with three balls to spare.

The final was a less nerve-wracking affair.

West Gambier won the toss and elected to bowl and would have been comfortable with the game situation when they restricted East to 4/131 from their 20 overs.

An unbeaten 49 from Emerson Marks proved critical before the Hentschke brothers got the job done with the ball – Alex with 4/12 from his four overs and Ben claiming 3/25 from his four over spell.

Liam Turley also made scoring difficult and finished his four overs with 2/10, in a spell that included a maiden.

And while West Gambier might have fallen at the last hurdle in the T20 competition, they are in control of their two day Barber Shield clash with South Gambier.

Despite only scoring 166 after winning the toss and deciding to bat, the Roos, thanks in no small part to the 4/5 from 10 overs from Bray Stephenson, have South struggling at 7/41.

Veteran Robbie Drenthen is still at the crease and will need to make a significant score if South has any hope of passing West’s first innings effort. Drenthen had already played his part with a five wicket haul with the ball.

The Penola-East Gambier match is evenly poised after Penola won the toss and put East in, dismissing the T20 champions for 116.

In reply, Penola is 3/32 with East having dismissed the dangerous Jack Mullan, Lewis March and Bredon Smart before they could do any scoreboard damage.

March had already played a key role, though, taking 6/22 from his 11.4 overs.

Mil Lel scrapped their way to 91 when North Sportsman’s won the toss and put them in to bat but all was not lost with Mil Lel already securing 1st innings points after dismissing North for 86.

Jack Miller was the star of the show, taking 6/32 from his 13.2 overs.