Sport
4 February, 2025
Tight contest between Clunes and Beaufort
It remains all to play for at Goldfields Reserve as Beaufort still need 151 runs with nine wickets remaining after Clunes made 191.
The Crows won the toss and decided to send the Magpies into bat, giving the new ball to Jayden Scotland and Joel Pymer.
The dynamic duo didn’t disappoint.
While Scotland made it difficult for openers Anthony Ellis and Lucas Rais-Colvin to make starts quickly, Pymer would stop their starts in their tracks.
First, Pymer claimed the wicket of Rais-Colvin for six as he was caught by Lachlan Oddie, then he steamrolled through the stumps of Ellis for 10, leaving the Magpies at 2/25.
That brought Jude McGuire and the returning Brenton Jones to the crease to pull Clunes out of a potentially precarious position.
They didn’t seem too concerned by the task, playing some beautiful shots on their way to a 62-run partnership with the pair combining for 10 fours and a six.
Oddie would deliver the wicket Beaufort desperately needed, bowling Jones after an entertaining 29.
The breakthrough opened the door for the Crows to peck back momentum, and it was Scotland who burst through that door for Beaufort.
He first claimed the big wicket of McGuire, caught behind by Charlie Dyer for 44, then bowled Mark Allen for 16, preventing him from repeating his 61 not out against Colts Phelans last round.
Mark Jenkin joined Brendan Ingram in the middle with the Magpies now sitting at 5/113.
After a 20-run stand between the two, Oddie was back in the action, getting the wicket of Ingram after he was caught by Ben Grant for eight.
Oddie was at it again soon thereafter, dismissing Fred Penhall for a duck after he was given out LBW.
With the Magpies now at 7/139, Mark Jenkin turned up the tempo for the Magpies alongside new batsman Daniel Fordham, hitting five boundaries before Pymer struck again, dismissing Jenkin for 30 as he was caught by Dyer.
The new man in Josh Dunn picked up where Jenkin left off, hitting a four and two sixes in his first innings for Clunes A grade this season.
He would lose Fordham shortly after he entered the contest, as he was run out by Tom Alexander and Dyer for 12.
Dunn would continue his hard-hitting before Oddie put the final thorn in with the ball, bowling Harrison Blomeley for three to finish the innings.
That brought Oddie his fourth wicket of the innings to finish with figures of 4/31 while Pymer grabbed 3/44 and Scotland was excellent with 2/8 off seven overs.
Jude McGuire’s 44 was the highest score of the innings, who alongside the ambush hitting of Jones, Jenkin and Dunn, who finished on 22 not out, brought Clunes’ total to 191.
With 20 overs left to play in the session, Beaufort openers Kriss Ellis and Josh Lofts were keen to keep their wickets in hand to attack Clunes’ total on day two.
The Clunes’ bowling attack ensured that goal wasn’t straight-forward, piling constant pressure onto the Crows with their tight bowling.
Their pressure was rewarded when Jenkin trapped Lofts in front for LBW after he made 12.
Ellis and new man at the crease Nicholas Cooper managed to sneak to the end of the day’s play, as Beaufort finished on 1/40 with Ellis on 14 and Cooper on two.
Jenkin is the only wicket-taker for Clunes so far with figures of 1/7 off six overs.