Tara Murray
It’s a new challenge for Altona Sports this season on the cricket field.
Having made four grand finals and winning three in the Western Suburbs Churches and Community Cricket Association last season, the club’s top sides have changed competitions/
While they still have three sides in the Churches competition, their top two sides are playing in the North West Metropolitan Cricket Association.
Captain-coach Liam Brennan said they wanted to branch out and play some two-day cricket which they couldn’t in the Churches competition.
“We decided to put across two sides and hopefully it will help with our development,” he said. “It’s a better standard of cricket and you’re playing proper cricket.
“We have two teams in that association and three in the Churches. We’ve gone from four teams last season which was the most teams we’ve had in 20 years.
“I don’t know the last time we had five teams, maybe in the 1990s.”
Brennan said the work the committee had done the last few years had been behind the growth at the club.
He said friends of players were keen to come down and play, while they’ve done a lot of work on making the club really multicultural.
The top side is playing in the Graham Muir Shield in the NWMCA, the top 70 over grade. They started the season with a big win against Balmoral.
Brennan said despite the success of last season they hadn’t set any expectations for this season.
“It’s a big unknown,” he said. “We don’t know much about the competition and they put us in whatever grade they thought suited us.
“Our first side played in division 4 last season and made the grand final. They put us in the highest grade.”
The club’s two top sides didn’t play on Saturday with heavy rain last week resulting in the round being called off competition wide.
The Churches sides though were among the rare side’s in Melbourne’s north-west that got the opportunity to play.
The division 7 side beat Westgate easily. West Gate was bowled out for 90, with Altona Sports finishing 4-91 in reply.
The division 8 side had a tough day out. The side were bowled out for 84 in reply to Royal Bengal’s 5-244.
Their division 12 side snuck home with a thrilling win against AA Tarneit. After bowling AA Tarneit out for 87, Altona Sports reached the runs with two wickets in hand.
They finished 8-90.
