ON the back of last week’s Barber Shield cricket round, one innings stood out.
South Gambier’s Dylan Clough was certainly impressive with the bat in hand.
He finished the day unbeaten on 125 off just 90 deliveries, which included 15 fours and six sixes.
But even more impressive was the fact it was Clough’s first hit for the season, after recovering from a football injury where he “did the ligaments” in his wrist.
“I had my first hit in the nets on Thursday,” he said.
“I was not sure what I was going to do, so I was floating around number five in the batting order.
“If we were going all right I was going to push myself down and let some others have a go.
“We lost a couple of quick wickets so I thought I would pad up and go out and have a go, settle a bit and knock a few around.
“I ended up staying out there for a while.”
Clough has previously reached the century mark with Millicent in a Twenty20 match, plus two other times with Rendelsham, but he rates this one right up the list.
“It would be up there, especially being not out at the end,” he said.
“I only gave away a couple of chances and it was pretty surprising how well I was hitting at the end.
“They were coming off nice.”
Clough said as he headed out to the middle the plan was to settle for a few overs, after losing a couple of early wickets.
He said the wicket had began to crumble during the East batting innings, which did cause some concern.
“We won the toss and chose to bowl,” he said.
“We thought it would play out pretty well, but through the East batting innings it started to crumble a bit where the foot marks are from the bowlers, which was a worry going out to bat.
“It did get in your head a little bit.”
However, Clough said he began to see the ball a bit better and some wide, short deliveries helped push the score along.
He said once the target for victory had been reached he decided to “throw the hands” at a few more.
The problem was Clough had few other team mates who reached a decent total, with Adam Kuhl on 30 at number four and David Vine with 32 not out down the order.
However, he managed to find the boundary on enough occasions to keep the run rate ticking over.
He said it was handy to have the likes of Kuhl and Vine to hold up the other end.
But overall he was pleased to contribute to a solid win and set the season up as the two-day games begin.
“The boys got around me and they were pretty happy we got the win in the end,” Clough said.
“Hopefully I can back it up this week, but it is a different form of game, so I will have to bat a bit different.”
Clough said the extra depth in the club this season was “a good problem to have”, with plenty of players looking for a top-order batting position.
“We are happy with the start we have had this year,” he said.
“A few players came back and we picked up a few, so we have good depth.
“We have good numbers at training, which is something we have struggled with the last couple of years.
“We have really good depth so it is hard to pick a batting line up.
“We will just see how it goes and whoever is performing will go up.
“This year is looking really good so far.”
