The first complete round of the Victorian Turf Cricket Association has come to an end with Point Cook getting over the Williamstown Imperials.
After the first round was cancelled due to weather, round two consisted of a full fixture of two day match ups.
Last weekend Point Cook won the toss and elected to bowl, with the expectation that the pitch will become better for batting as the season goes on.
“The reason the captain decided to bowl was because it’s the first deck of the year, Fearon Reserve’s always a good batting deck, one of the best decks in the competition,” Point Cook coach Carmine Conte said.
“We’ve got a different side this year, we’re young and enthusiastic and it went well.
“It’s a fairly young side, a lot of home growns in the side, so I’m very happy with the way we started.”
Conte said he was pleased with his bowlers performance, especially from a couple of players on debut for the club.
The debutants were Varinder pal Singh and Karandeep Singh. Varinder pal opened the bowling and took 2-27 off 13 overs. While Karandeep took 2-26 off 10 overs bowling off spin.
“They made 173 but there were a couple of decisions that didn’t go our way, they probably shouldn’t have made 100 but in saying that they got to 173 and our top order did the job,” he said.
“[Varinda pal] opened our bowling and bowled really well, unlucky he could’ve got a lot more wickets.
“[Karandeep] had a good start to the season as well.”
Point Cook was able to dismiss both of the Imperials batsman early, however the Imperials’ skipper Andrew Hendry was able to come in and get his side’s innings back on track scoring 55 off 79 deliveries.
“That’s the way [Hendry] bats, he’s a good bat and he took his time and punished the bad balls, he definitely did his job,” Conte said.
This week Point Cook managed to score the required runs, and add a few extra to help them with their percentage.
“We hunted the runs down, three down and then the boys tried to have a bit of fun and lost a few wickets at the end,” Conte said.
The highlights of Point Cook’s batting innings was Dasith Jayatilake’s commanding knock of 45 from 116 deliveries and Joshua van Zyl’s heartbreaking 99 from 114 balls.
“[van Zyl] was just starting to open up the shoulders too, he got from 65 to 99 in a real hurry, he wanted to continue the momentum but obviously he went out,” Conte said.
“He was disappointed, distraught, it would’ve been his first 100 for the club, but hopefully he backs it up next game.
“That’s [Jayatilake’s] job, that’s what he does, he’s an opening bat and tries to set the platform for everyone else, most of our bats are attacking bats and we bat around him, we try to do that every week.”
Next week Point Cook will play Pascoe Vale Hadfield, while Williamstown will play East Keilor in two day games.
Harper Sercombe
