Sport
13 November, 2023
Luke Smith speaks on being named best on ground in Sunday's T20 final
A terrific weekend from Luke Smith saw him honoured with the best on ground medal on Sunday for holding together Laanecoorie Dunolly’s innings when things, at times, looked like falling apart. Smith’s 51 in the grand final continues a stunning...
A terrific weekend from Luke Smith saw him honoured with the best on ground medal on Sunday for holding together Laanecoorie Dunolly’s innings when things, at times, looked like falling apart.
Smith’s 51 in the grand final continues a stunning month of cricket for the Laane talisman, who has vaulted up to second in the run-scoring charts with 257 runs for the season — one behind Beaufort’s Lachlan Oddie.
It’s a month that has seen him accumulate 207 runs and six wickets as he now looks to take control in all facets of the game.
Just this weekend alone, Smith scored 112 runs, following up his 61 in the one-day game on Saturday with his half-century to guide Laane home.
Smith got things started very early on, taking two wickets as he helped Laane restrict Clunes to 100.
When it came time to bat, he was instrumental in helping Laane score 28 runs in the first two overs, before continuing on with the job by batting through the innings — crucially, while Laane lost 4/20 to be 4/55 at one stage.
At the end of it all, however, Smith is just happy to be part of a winning team.
“I’m happy, when I do well, the team does well. Clunes play the game hard and they have good fighting spirit, as well as a bit of history with Dunolly, so it was a tough battle, but I was happy we got over the line,” he said.
“I’m enjoying the start of my season. For me, I like to continue my form, and I know that if it happens, we’ll be going well.”
That form saw somewhat heated exchanges throughout the day, with Clunes spearhead bowlers Ash Gunn and Lachlan Morganti in particular up and about, trying to will the Magpies to an upset grand final win.
Smith offered an insight into how he was able to keep a level head in the face of battle.
“It was pretty hard. Opening the batting isn’t the easiest thing to do, but once I get through the first couple of overs and first few balls, everything gets easier and at the end, I managed to make sure the bat did all the talking,” he said.
“I knew at 4/55, we needed 50 runs to win, and I told Matt Smith that when anyone comes in to just stick with me and we’ll get over the line.”
Luke offered a good insight into how his namesake sees cricket — there isn’t a want to play extravagant cricket, but more or less, just to do the basic things better.
“We’ve won eight straight now, and we just want to keep doing well and do the basic things. Matt always talks about it, doing those things better than everyone else, and the results come our way as a result,” he said.