Williamstown is in a strong position at the mid-point of its Sub District Cricket clash with Taylors Lakes, batting to the brink of stumps to post a big total.
After winning the toss and batting on their home deck, the Seagulls overcame two early wickets before a series of important partnerships helped them to 304 at stumps.
Williamstown skipper Dale McDonald was pleased with the even contribution for the day, with three players passing 50.
“To make 300 in a day, we’re pretty happy with that,” McDonald said.
“Everyone’s in pretty good touch at the moment, and we’re sharing the load pretty well, which is nice. The form of the guys up the top has been important to our start of the year.”
The day started well for the visitors, with Williamstown opener Brenton Hodges (7) and first drop Brent McMinn (1) both falling cheaply to Yoshan Kumara.
Patrick O’Malley looked solid from
the start, and the early part of the day saw Shaun Jennings (31) and Mitchell Streiff (25) batting around him while the Lions’ bowlers managed to dismiss Jennings and Streiff. O’Malley fell just before tea for a well made 50, and at 5-142 at the break the match was evenly poised.
Kumara had three wickets at the break, and spinner Jarrod Wakeling chipped in with two of his own, but Williamstown’s deep batting line-up came to the rescue, with McDonald and veteran Craig Sheedy combining to set up a big total. The pair put on 130 runs before McDonald (68) became Wakeling’s third victim, with Sheedy (73) dismissed by Dilan Chandima soon afterwards.
The Williamstown tail pushed the target out beyond 300 before Wakeling was able to wrap up the innings in the penultimate over.
With an unbeaten start to the season, McDonald said confidence in the side was high as it looks to grab its fourth win.
“With 304 on the board we’ll back our bowling line-up in to defend that,” he said.
“They’ve [Taylors Lakes] got a couple of good batsmen, and you’ve only got to give them a sniff and anything can happen, but we made 287 a couple of weeks ago at Williamstown and defended that against a strong Kew batting line-up.
“If we can’t defend 300 we are in for a long year.”
