Yarraville captain Matthew Love was a sore man on Sunday morning – 130 runs worth of sore.
“Very sore, but it’s a good kind of sore,” he told Star Weekly. “I wouldn’t mind being this sore every weekend.”
PICTURE GALLERY: Yarraville v Werribee
Love has given the Eagles a fighting chance of upsetting Werribee in the Victorian Sub-District Cricket Association when play resumes on the second day at Yarraville Oval on Saturday.
The skipper’s unbeaten ton was the backbone to a massive 8-283, but it was not all smooth sailing for Love, who spent a large chunk of his innings batting before tea when the Eagles struggled to 4-83 off 48 overs.
“It was really an innings of two halves,” Love said, from both an individual and team viewpoint.
“It was a matter of getting through to tea at the start because they bowled well and set really good fields for the first half.”
It was not until Love was joined at the crease by tail-ender Patrick Prestidge that the fun really started.
Prestidge came out like a superhero with lusty shots that would have the words such as boom, whack and kapow along-side the
m in a cartoon. He made 59 in no time – his maiden first XI half-century – to accelerate the scoring.
With the attention on his batting partner, Love capitalised from the other end, upping the scoring rate and turning from a position of being relatively bogged down to finishing with a stunning nine sixes.
Love and Prestidge combined for 117 in just 12 overs to take the score from 7-143 to 8-260.
“He really helped me along,” Love said. “It was just taking them on, chancing our arm. It was a partnership that we just really enjoyed; we were both having fun.”
While runs on the board – and lots of them – are the preference heading into the second day of a game, the Eagles know they will still have to bowl at their best to restrict an accomplished Werribee batting line-up.
Tigers captain Shaun Dean and his players are licking their lips at the prospect of similar conditions with an incredibly short boundary on one side, a flat wicket and a lightning-fast outfield.
It is a recipe for what should make for an intriguing run chase. Love is adamant there are enough runs in the bank to bring down a Tigers side that has been dominant for 24 months.
“The ground is hard to defend at times,” Love said. “We’re playing on a one-side wicket – we’ve got a short boundary on one side.
“And there’s value all around the ground if it gets through the in-field.
“In saying that, we’ve got to jump on everything and make sure nothing gets
past us and bowl one side of the wicket,” he said.
“If we can do that, hopefully we can pull off our first win against probably one of the top sides in the competition.”
Meanwhile, Williamstown’s away clash with Ivanhoe will revert to a one-day game on Saturday after the pitch at Ivanhoe Park was sadly vandalised ahead of the game.
